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French Philosophies 
of the 


Romantic Period 





French Philosophies 


of the 


Romantic Period 


ey 
GEORGE BOAS 


BALTIMORE 
THE JOHNS HOPKINS PRESS 
1925 


(ama 
ae 








Copyright, 1925, oF 
By THE JouNS HopKINS 





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To my Mother 


Les philosophies sont intéressantes seulement comme 
des monuments psychiques propres a éclairer le savant 
sur les divers états qu’a traversés l’esprit humain. 
Précieuses pour la connaissance de l’homme, elles ne 
sauraient nous instruire en rien de ce qui nest pas 
Vhomme.—Le Jardin d’Epicure. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER ONE PAGE 
etl ia vine ie a ou0a ba ble dete wee vil 


THE PHILOSOPHICAL SITUATION AFTER THE REvo- 
ERIS ES (se ee ea a I 


CHAPTER TWO 


Mee erOontUNES OF IDEOLOGY... .......,..00.0086 23 


CHAPTER THREE 


Pee GC MRISTIANS 402-5 sess ee ee cle soe 70 


CHAPTER FOUR 


THE INTRODUCTION OF FOREIGN THINKERS...... 154 


CHAPTER FIVE 


epee IUCLECTICISM il... g cee es le ees 197 


Meee eE Or POSITIVISM 05 i ee cee ews 254 
Maer eee od. we Ue 'e Cele wide gain 306 
RET. 5 she n'e we vo 4 a woe lp ape aiaca diel be 310 


PREFACE 


The following essays on French philosophies of the 
Romantic Period attempt to study the philosophic 
background of one of the most interesting political and 
cultural periods in French history. Politically France 
was adjusting herself to normal life after the upheaval 
of the Revolution; she was experimenting with new 
and indeed unheard of political fashions. One of the 
steadiest dynasties in Europe was to be replaced by a 
series of short-lived governments, differing not only in 
_ structure from their predecessors but in the very ends 
which informed them. Culturally France was no less 
the scene of experimentation. If the zsthetic revolu- 
tion did not appear so soon as the political, it was no 
less intense and there were times when it looked as if it 
might be almost as bloody. What was called first “ the 
new spirit ” and later “ romanticism ” divided the world 
of art into sects as hostile to one another as émigrés and 
Jacobins. 

Behind the political and esthetic changes lay certain 
beliefs. Whether the beliefs determined the changes or 
the changes the beliefs we shall not take upon ourselves 
to settle. What this book is concerned with is making 
the proper correlation. Such a concern has had an un- 
fortunate effect. It has neglected at times the philoso- 
phies to the advantage of the motives behind them or 
before them and given the philosophers the air of men 


ix 


x PREFACE 


who were not wholly sincere in the carrying out of their 
life’s interest. 

The pages which follow have another characteristic 
which may prejudice philosophers against them. They 
do not form what is often called a “ critical exposition ” 
of their subject matter. I have not been blind to the 
logical errors of these men’s thinking; nothing would 
have been easier than to point some of them out. But 
only when the pompousness or insolence of the author 
grew intolerable have I yielded to the temptation of 
suggesting how little ground there was for his self- 
appraisal. I have not been interested in the truth and 
falsity of these ideas; I have been interested in their 
rise and decline. This book is a portrait, not intention- 
ally a caricature, and has no moral purpose. It is ad- 
dressed not only to students of philosophy but to stu- 
dents of civilization in general. If anyone wishes to 
pursue his investigation of these philosophies fur- 
ther, the footnotes will suggest ample material to be 
examined. 

Begun in 1921 this manuscript was completed in 
1924. Were I to begin it now I should undoubtedly 
attack the problem differently, emphasizing’ certain 
points which are here obscured, obscuring perhaps cer- 
tain which are not here emphasized. Some of the chap- 
ters would have new footnotes referring the reader to 
publications which have appeared since I ended actual 
writing. But on the whole I find little in it which J 
should feel inaccurate. 


PREFACE x1 


My warmest thanks are due to my friend and col- 
league, Professor A. O. Lovejoy, who, though he would 
not agree with some of the opinions expressed here, 
has aided me in every way to get them into print; to 
Professors Charles Cestre and Lévy-Bruhl of the Sor- 
bonne for their numerous kindnesses to me and to their 
fellows in France who helped make my stay in their 
country pleasurable and profitable. 


Cd et 


BALTIMORE, May 1925. 





Sie TER ONE, 


THE PHILOSOPHICAL SITUATION AFTER THE 
REVOLUTION 


One of the first things which Napoleon attempted 
when he knew that his power was assured was to un- 
dermine the prestige of the revolutionary changes in 
France’s internal economy and to strengthen those forces 
which would favor a personal dictatorship. One of the 
first groups to suffer was naturally the philosophers, for 
on their shoulders lay the blame for overthrowing the 
monarchy, and in the perpetuation of their teachings 
was the perpetuation of democratic ideas. How just 
the blame is has been a matter of dispute to this day. 
For it is not easy to determine in just what responsi- 
bility for a political event consists. In all fairness opin- 
ion may be said to divide on this particular question as 
follows: the negative, those who admire the Revolu- 
tion, but not the philosophers; those who admire the 
philosophers but not the Revolution; the affirmative: 
those who admire the Revolution and the philoso- 
phers; those who admire neither the Revolution nor 
the philosophers.* 

It was popular as early as the Revolution itself to call 
the philosophers its founders. Certainly the burial of 

*The extent of this dispute is well indicated in the preface 


to Roustan; “Les Philosophes et la Société Francaise au 
XVIII® Siécle,” P. ror. 


2 I 


2 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


Voltaire and Rousseau in the Panthéon is evidence that 
the people thought—falsely or truly—that they were 
somehow connected causally with the events then go- 
ing on. As for the lesser lights, a report of the Pre- 
fecture of Police of the 4th of Vendémiaire, Year IX 
(26 September 1800) when the Revolution was calm- 
ing down, reads, “ There is going to appear under the 
title, ‘Etrennes de I’Institut national et des Lycées,’ a 
literary review of the Year VIII, 1 vol. in-12, 204 
pages, printer Moller. At the head of this collection is a 
very satirical letter to the Institut which is utterly out- 
rageous. It would seem that this organization is merely 
an assembly of men conspiring against sane morals, ene- 
mies of true philosophy (very evidently that according 
to the author to which royalism attributes the birth of 
the Revolution) ; in short a crowd of atheists, etc., etc.” * 
A year after the Prefecture of Police is less friendly. It 
reports, “The philosophers are complaining that peo- 
ple are trying to attribute to them all the evils of the 
Revolution and the destruction of their former institu- 
tions. They are saying that the scorn which people 
affect towards them is discouraging talent and know!- 
edge, and that it will end by delivering them over to 
the indiscretion of the priests, who even now are not 
sparing their feelings in their speeches and who soon 
will point them out to the people as the authors of all 
the evils which they have suffered, and that, in this 
way, they will draw to them the general hatred of the 


? Aulard; “ P. sous le Consulat,” P. 1903, I 675. 


AFTER THE REVOLUTION 3 


public. Following such complaints they permit them- 
selves most often remarks against the government.” * 

Some men of course had sense enough to see that a 
philosopher or even several, cannot make a popular 
movement. The Décade, the philosophical review of 
the time, protested on the ground that the philosophers 
had suffered too much from the Revolution to have 
been responsible for it—a strange argument—and 
La Minerve Francaise (Vol. III), the paper of Benja- 
min Constant, in a review published some years later of 
the Abbé Georgel’s “ Mémoires pour servir a l’histoire 
des événements de la fin du 18° siecle,” protests that 
the guilt of kings, of the upper classes, of the ministers 
had more to do with starting the Revolution than the 
philosophers had. But perhaps the justest remark on 
this subject is by Professor Aulard made in another 
connection but applicable here, “If they tried to de- 
stroy Christianity, it was not because Voltaire had said, 
“Ecrasez l’infame,’ or because the Abbé Raynal had 
constructed the theory of the rights of the State upon 
individual conscience: It was because the Catholic 
priest was conspiring with the enemy from without.” * 

If the philosophers were to suffer from Napoleon’s 
rise, the Church was to benefit. For the Church had 
always been the friend of the monarchy. What was 


*Td., II 590, Report of the 5th of Brumaire, Year X. 

* Aulard; “Le Culte de la Raison et le Culte de l’Etre Su- 
préme,” 3d ed., P. 1909, p. 15. See also Roederer’s defence of 
philosophy, quoted by Picavet; “Les Idéologues,” P. 1890, p. 
122 i. I. 


4 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


needed in France, as Napoleon saw it, was men who 
would teach that the enduring commands respect and 
obedience, that the passing is of no moment. It was on 
the Eleatic rock that the Church had founded her power 
far more than on the restless lake of Galilee, and as 
she had been the foe of the philosophers from Voltaire 
to Destutt de Tracy, so she was the friend of whatever 
power would make for order, for stability, for perma- 
nence, for unity. 

In reading the works of the philosophers of the 
Revolution, of either the intellectualists or the senti- 
mentalists, one is puzzled to know whether their oppo- 
sition to the Church was the effect of their philosophies 
or whether it was the inspiration. Both might easily 
be true. 

The followers of Condillac, the Idéologues, believed 
in the cognitive primacy of sensations, which—as Caba- 
nis was going to show—varied with age, sex, tempera- 
ment, climate, diet, health, and the like. He had laid 
out his work as early as 1798 before the Second Class 
of the Institut, in a memoir read on the 7th of Pluvidse, 
“Considerations on the Study of Man, and Upon the 
Relations of His Physical Organism to His Intellectual 
and Moral Faculties.”’ To such men ideas were merely 
compounds of sensations, and when they wished to un- 
derstand an idea, they analysed it into the sensations 
of which it was composed.” Early in the Revolution one 
of their group, Arbogast, has proposed that this method 

5 See Destutt de Tracy’s memoir on the metaphysics of Kant, 


“Mem. de I’Institut National des Sciences et Arts: Sciences 
Morales et Politiques,” IV 578. 


AFTER THE REVOLUTION 5 


should be used even in composing elementary school 
books. It alone, he felt, could keep the youth of the 
land from the shadowy method of abstract principles, 
of vague and general ideas which had reigned hitherto. 
A section of the Institut existed for no other purpose 
than the breaking down of ideas into their elementary 
parts. 

If all ideas were made of such matter, then the ideas 
of God, freedom, and immortality, or, if you choose, 
divine right, authority, hereditary rule, might be in- 
ferred to be nothing more than sensory complexes. 
Habit, repetition, might be seen to have fixed them in 
the minds of men, so that they had no more enduring 
value than any other habit, that of wearing wigs or car- 
rying swords. To be sure, if it could be shown that 
some sensation corresponded to them, as the sensation 


*Arbogast; “Rapport et projet de décret sur la compo- 
sition des livres élémentaires destinés a l’instruction publique,” 
P. n. d. “ Analysis is to the sciences, it is to teaching, what 
liberty is to political institutions; both make a man feel his 
worth and contribute to his perfection. Analysis pertains to 
all the branches of human knowledge; throughout it is the 
instrument which guides one to inventions and discoveries; it 
alone gives that rectitude of judgment, that feeling for truth 
which characterizes the man who is truly educated. 

“The analytic method should, then, reign everywhere in 
well ordered studies. One should never offer a single idea, a 
single word, unless analysis has made it exact and precise. One 
should never present any result which does not derive from a 
preceding analysis. Let us beware of that shadowy method 
which has ruled in the greater part of text-books, of those 
abstract principles which have misled men up to the present, 
of those vague and general ideas which have been too often 
realized, although they do not exist in nature.” 


6 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


of a color corresponds to our idea of a color, the case 
might be easier. But the Church, for one, did not wish 
the truth of its doctrines to be based on anything as 
personal as sensations which one might or might not 
have. It had made that clear in its constant opposition 
to all forms of mysticism. The State was in the same 
situation. What could the Church do in such circum- 
stances? What happened to such doctrines as vicarious 
atonement, the Trinity, inherited guilt, whose depen- 
dence upon a realistic logic had been well enough illus- 
trated in the twelfth century? What happened to the 
privileged position of the Clergy, their supervisory 
power over education, their monopoly of truth? Their 
high estate depended upon their peculiar knowledge of 
God and His ways, and if that dwindled to a mosaic 
of sensations, colored by age and temperament and at- 
tainable by the least clerical of souls, what was to 
become of them? 

The followers of Rousseau, the sentimentalists, 
shrank in horror from this sensationalism. Something 
in their hearts told them that God dwells in the beauty 
of the landscape and in the vastness of the sky. Robes- 
pierre himself, not their least picturesque adherent, 
cried out in the Assembly that he would have been lost 
in the struggles and intrigues of politics if he could not 
have lifted his soul to that Eternal Being who seemed 
to him “to watch over the French Revolution in an 
especial manner.”’’ The mystics, who may be grouped 


™Quoted in Joyau; “La Philos. en Fr. pendant la Rév. 
(1789-1795),” P. 1893, p. 256. 


AFTER THE REVOLUTION 7 


with the sentimentalists, followed the same lead. Ber- 
nardin de Saint-Pierre and Saint-Martin as well, both 
named by the supposedly atheistic Assembly as guar- 
dians for the Dauphin, were on the best of terms with 
the Deity. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre saw His hand 
even in the shaping of melons for the knife; Saint- 
Martin saw little besides Him in the world.* Robes- 
pierre had no great difficulty in making the Conven- 
tion decree that “the French people recognize the 
existence of the Supreme Being and the immortality of 
the soul.” *® So our own Benjamin Franklin, author of 
a treatise in defence of polytheism in his youth, pleaded 
for the offering of prayers in the Continental Congress, 
on the ground that God—who had won the war for the 
colonists—had been wronged by their omission.” 

But in spite of their pronounced opposition to athe- 
ism, this group too was hostile to the Church. The same 
decree of the 18th of Floréal, Year II, which recog- 
nizes that God exists, adds that the cult worthy of 
Him is the practice of manly virtues. It says nothing 
about Catholic worship. It was no concession to the 
Clergy. In presenting it for consideration, Robes- 
pierre turned towards the ecclesiastical representa- 

* But see Franck; “ Philos. Mystique en Fr. a la Fin du 18° 
siécle,” P. 1866, esp. ch. vi. 

*From a contemporary reprint. The text can be found in 
Aulard; “Le Culte etc.” ch. xxiii. 

* See “The Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 etc.,” 
reported by James Madison, ed. Hunt and Scott, N. Y., 1920 


(Pub. of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace), 
p. 181. 


8 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


tives and cried, “Fanatics, hope for nothing from 
us ... 3; ambitious priests, do not expect that we shall 
work to re-establish your empire.” ” How could men 
who saw God in their hearts accept the revelations of a 
priesthood? For them the source of religious insight 
was within the individual ; it was a personal affair ; its 
authority came from the feelings of the believer; its 
Church was the Church Invisible. For the Catholic, 
religion is a social affair; the individual is subject to 
error in reading both his Bible” and his heart;” its 
authority comes from the institution of which Christ’s 
vicar is the head; its church is visible and militant. 

Thus the Church found both her theory of knowl- 
edge and her religious discipline assailed. 

But there were reasons other than those of logical 
consistency which made it probable that any philosophy 
formulated as an expression of the Revolution would 
be anti-clerical. If the monarchy was to go, the Church 
must go. That was obvious to political leaders of al- 
most all philosophical persuasions. When one saw how 
thoroughly the Church had grown over the State, like 
ivy over an ancient tree, one did not need to be told 
in order to see that to cut down the tree was to cut 
down the vine. 


* Quoted in Aulard; “Le Culte etc.,” p. 272 n. 1. 

“ Denziger’s “Enchiridion” (ed. of I921T), no. 1429, the 
Errors of Quesnel (no. 79); cf. no. 1606, 1608 and the Encyl. 
of Gregory XVI, Inter. praecipuas, no. 1630. 

*Td., Index systematicus, I c. 


AFTER THE REVOLUTION 9 


It has been held that the aim of the Revolution was 
above all to de-christianize France,“ and when one 
remembers that the civil constitution of the Clergy was 
passed before the King was beheaded, one sees some 
reason in the charge. But even if this had not been its 
aim, it could scarcely have been avoided. How to de- 
christianize France and have anything left was a prob- 
lem easier to state than to solve. Where was the State 
and where the Church? The Church was not merely a 
religious institution. Her members had peculiar eco- 
nomic privileges and political power. She alone had 
buildings in which to hold divine service; a book at- 
tacking her could not be published in France; she con- 
trolled the education of the youth; she owned, accord- 
ing to popular belief, one-fifth of the land of France; 
her revenues from all sources, including perquisites, 
were nearly two hundred million livres; the property 
of the Clergy was exempt from taxation and the only 
contribution which they made to the State was volun- 
tary gifts, consisting of a quinquennial grant of sixteen 
millions, used in large part to pay debts contracted at 
an earlier date.” Her peculiar wealth had, for that mat- 


“See Joyau; Op. cit., which criticizes it harshly on that 
account; Michelet, who praises it for the same reason. Paul 
Janet; “La Philos. et la Rév. Fr.,” P. 1875, p. 94, says that 
for Michelet there are only two periods of history, the Chris- 
tian and the Revolutionary. 

* Pressensé; “I’Eglise et la Rév. Fr.,” P. 1867, p. 8. Pres- 
sensé refers his readers to Rodot’s “La Fr. avant la Reév., 
son état politique et social en 1787” and to “La Fr. ecclé- 
Siastique ” for 1788, for the facts about the quinquennial grants. 
I should like to add the more accessible volume of Robinet, 
~ “Le Mouvement Relig. a P. pendant la Rév.,” P. 1896, I 151. 


Io FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


ter, been satirized long before the Revolution. The 
Persian Letters are not dumb on the subject and Usbek 
writes to Rhedi that the Catholic dervishes never cease 
taking and never begin giving.“ No other institution, 
it is needless to say, enjoyed such a position. 

That was more antipathetic to the reformers than 
the beliefs of the Church. For years before the Revo- 
lution scepticism seems to have been fashionable and 
no dignitary of the Church of any importance was 
simple-minded enough to show the world more than 
the form of Christianity. The Archbishop of Nar- 
bonne, for instance, is said to have explained the re- 
sistance of the upper clergy in ’91 as due not to their 
faith but to their honor as gentlemen.” It was not, 
then, the mere religious scepticism of men of whom 
only a part were sceptics, which overthrew the Church; 
for if the weight of scepticism had been enough, the 
Church would have crashed to earth with no propul- 
sion from without. French society owed her a grudge. 
Scepticism and the philosophers helped to articulate and 
sanction it. 

Accordingly one finds that Catholicism is given as 
hard a blow as the monarchy which it seemed to sup- 
port. But it is Catholicism as a political institution, and 
not as a religion, which the Revolution tried to over- 

 Ulvetter) Oxvils 

™ Taine; “Les Origines de la Fr. Contemporaine: 1’Ancien 
Régime,” II, liv. iv, ch. iv. The reader should be warned, of 
course, against Taine as an historian—see Aulard; “ Taine, 


Historien de la Rév. Fr.,” P. 1907. I do not find this particular 
assertion, however, contradicted by Aulard. 


AFTER THE REVOLUTION II 


throw at the start. “ The idea of attacking the dogma, 
of trying to destroy Catholicism, was made popular 
only in that so critical period from April to December 
1793, when the Revolution had to struggle at once 
against the Vendée and against Europe. It was then 
believed that religion was the soul of the coalition 
against France,” says Professor Aulard.” Up to that 
time the estates of the Clergy had been sold (10 Octo- 
ber 1789) and the Civil Constitution of the Clergy 
passed (12 July 1790), but as late as June 1793 the 
Convention decreed that “the salary of the Clergy is 
part of the public debt.’”’ Law means little when not 
observed, to be sure, but it is important to note what 
it was thought good to include in the law. 

It is only thereafter that there comes measure upon 
measure to destroy not only the outward manifesta- 
tions of Catholicism in buildings, in art, in ceremony, 
but the very faith of the people. Priests are encouraged 
to marry, the church bells are made into cannon, the 
gold and silver of the altars are taken to the Mint, and 
finally the churches are turned into temples where first 
Reason, then the Supreme Being, are worshipped.” 
But this story is worn thread-bare and has no place 
here. We should not forget however that the methods 
of the Revolutionists were not new. Many of the de- 

(ee Culte, etc.” p: 19. 

“The story of the rise of the revolutionary cults is best 
and most briefly told in Aulard: “Le Culte etc.” But no one, 
wishing to read the whole story should omit Mathiez: “La 


Théophilanthropie et le Culte Décadaire,’ P. 1904 nor the work 
of Pressensé already cited. 


I2 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


crees of the Convention are paralleled by analogous 
decrees in the Theodosian Code.” In fact, one does not 
have to go to Rome for a precedent. The Revocation 
of the Edict of Nantes was no less one. It ordered that 
all places of worship of the Protestants be demolished ; 
forbade assemblies of any sort for the exercise of 
Protestant worship; forbade the practice of Protes- 
tant worship in one’s own house individually ; ordered 
all ministers of Protestantism to embrace Catholicism 
or leave France within two weeks; offered apostate 
ministers a continuation of certain exemptions from 
taxation; offered inducements for such ministers to 
take the degree of Doctor of Laws ; forbade schools for 
the instruction of children in Protestantism; ordered 
all children born of Protestant parents to be baptised 
and educated in the Catholic faith under a minimum 
penalty of five hundred livres fine; returned property 
to Protestants who came back to France within four 
months after the publication of the Revocation and 
confiscated that of those who did not; and forbade all 
Protestants to leave the country. 

One might venture to say that any attempt to sup- 
plant one religion by another in a legal way would 
afford as close if not so piquant an analogy. The at- 
tempted destruction of Catholicism is like a reproduc- 
tion of the attempted destruction of paganism, and 

* De Apostatis and de Judaeis, Caelicolis, et Samaritans, 
“Theodosiani Lib. XVI,” ed. Mommsen and Meyer, Berlin 
1905, I xvi 7 and 8. Cf. Dill; “Roman Society in the Last 


Century of the Western Empire,” 2d ed. rev., Lond. 1919, 
ch. i and ii. 


AFTER THE REVOLUTION 13 


just as the old Italian peasant illegally worshipped in 
isolated shrines the nymphs of his woods and streams, 
so the Breton peasant stole off under cover of dark- 
ness to confess to his priest or to have his marriage 
solemnized. In the one case the destruction was fairly 
thorough and took centuries to be completed. In the 
other it seemed superfical and endured for half a 
decade. 

It fell to Napoleon’s lot to play the role of Julian 
the Apostate. And characteristically enough he played 
it with greater effect than his Roman prototype. 

He turned first to the philosophers. The sentimen- 
talists were easy enough to conquer. Their vague 
ruminations were hardly worth noticing. The Presi- 
dent of his Legislature and later Grand Master of the 
University, Fontanes, as early as 1786 had seen how 
weak a head was Bernardin de Saint-Pierre’s,” the 
professor who, in the words of Anatole France, “ re- 
tired after his first lecture to find out what he had to 
say and never came back to the platform.’” The 
Emperor had little to fear from him. Appreciating his 
ability as a writer, he gave him a pension of six thou- 
sand francs to prove it. But he said that he should 
have been chased out of the Institut for having written 
on the harmonies of nature. He knew that this man 
was harmless and left him to enjoy his young wife, his 

Letter to Joubert in “ Les Correspondants de J. Joubert,” 
P. 1883, p. 47. 

™“Le Génie Latin,” p. 238. This should be corrected by 


Maury; “ Etude sur Bernardin de Saint-Pierre,’ P. 1892, pp. 
200-206. 


I4 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


garden, his pension, and his cross of the Legion oi 
Honor. There was, moreover, a certain bond of sym- 
pathy between the Emperor and the poet-philosopher. 
They both hated the descendants of Condillac.” 

This group he railed at without end. They were 
“inexhaustible non- 


%) 


“these miserable metaphysicians, 
sensemongers.”~ He railed at them because he feared 
them. As a member of his Conseil d’Etat, Pelet de 
la Lozére, says, he feared them and the Republicans 
much more than the Royalists. Theirs was the work 
he must undo. And as they were neither Royalist nor 
Jacobin and could give him no cause to guillotine them 
or to deport them, he vented his spleen in diatribes and 
in using Destutt de Tracy’s name, Idéologue, as a syno- 
nym for all that was vain and trivial, a meaning which 
it has kept to this day.” But his sneers left his victims 
unharmed. 

The development of his unfriendly sentiments to- 
wards the Idéologues is coincident with his rise to 
power. As a young lieutenant of artillery, he had 
sworn to obey the constitution of the National Assem- 
bly.“ As a young general fresh from the Egyptian 

* Maury; Op. cit. 224. 

2* These remarks were originally written in the Journal de P., 
15 pluvidse IX and republished in Fontanes’s journal, le Mer- 
cure de Fr. on the following day. They are constantly quoted 
and can be easily found in Picavet; Op. cit. p. 23 or Gauthier ; 
“Mme. de Staél et Napoléon,” P. 1902, p. 64. 

** Lerminier; “De I’Influence de la Philos. du XVIII® Siécle 


sur la Legislation et la Sociabilité du XIX°,” P. 1833, p. 277. 


* Conveniently quoted in Fournier; “Napoleon I,” tr. by 
Annie Elizabeth Adams, N. Y., 1911, I 36. 


AFTER THE REVOLUTION 15 


Campaign he had been by no means unwilling to accept 
membership in the Institut and humbly had gone to 
Auteuil to pay his respects to the widow of Helvétius.” 
In this early period he had been on terms of friend- 
ship with Destutt de Tracy, whom he had invited to 
accompany him to Egypt. After the Treaty of Campo- 
Formio he replied to Garat’s compliments, “ The true 
victories, the only ones which leave no regrets, are 
those over ignorance. The most honorable as well as 
the most useful occupation for nations is to contribute 
to the extension of human ideas.” * 
enough for a modest and precocious officer fresh from 


This was well 


foreign wars, when simplicity of demeanor would ex- 
cite the enthusiasm of the masses. But later when he 
saw that his love of ideas might not be compatible with 
his love of power, his attitude changed. He grew to 
see in the Idéologues a set of sanctimonious dreamers, 
incapable of fruitful action. Yet without their aid, 
their planning and preparing, their moderate liberalism. 
their willingness to experiment, their freedom from 
prejudice, their optimism in the face of discourage- 
ment, not even the 18th of Brumaire would have suc- 
ceeded.” 


* Picavet; Op. cit. p. 221 n. 2. See Jules Bertaut; “Mme. 
Helvétius,” R. de la Semaine, VI, 30 June 1922, for a lively 
account of this charming woman. For a more careful study, 
see Guillois; “Le Salon de Mme. Helvétius,” P. 1894. 

* TI translate from the text in Garat’s paper, le Conservateur, 
No. 122, 11 nivose VI (31 Dec. 1797), p. 972. It is also quoted 
by Picavet; Op. cit. 221. 

* Fournier; Op. cit. II 248. 


16 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


As a young lieutenant of artillery Napoleon had 
sworn to obey the constitution of the National Assem- 
bly. But under the Constitution of the Year VIII the 
Declaration of the Rights of Man has disappeared. 
Two years later personal prerogatives begin to accrue 
to him ; he appoints senators and has the power of par- 
don ; he names the presidents of the assemblées de can- 
ton. Again two years and he is Emperor of the French 
with his power hereditary in his male descendants and 
derived not only from the constitutions of the French 
Republic but from the grace of God. Meanwhile he 
has closed the Ecoles Centrales, the invention of the 
Idéologues, and has substituted for them the Imperial 
University.” 

“My principal aim,” he said in 1806, “in establish- 
ing a teaching body, is to have a means of directing 
political and moral opinion.” The decree of March 
17, 1806, is a good illustration of how he thought it 
should be achieved. “ All the schools of the Imperial 
University,” it reads, “‘ will take as the basis of their 
teaching, first, the precepts of the Catholic religion ; 
second, fidelity to the Emperor, to the imperial mon- 
archy, depository of the happiness of peoples, and to 
the Napoleonic dynasty, conserver of the unity of 
France and of all the liberal ideas proclaimed by her 
constitutions; third, obedience to the statutes of the 
teaching body which has for its object uniformity of 


‘ 


°° Picavet; Op. cit. 20. 

** Pelet de la Lozére; “ Opinions de Napoléon . . . recueuil- 
lies par un membre de son conseil d'état,’ P. 1833, Séance 
du 20 mars 1806, p. 167. 


AFTER THE REVOLUTION i7 


instruction and which tends to mold for the benefit of 
the state citizens attached to their religion, their prince, 
their country, and their family ; fourth, all the profes- 
sors of theology will be held to conform to the pro- 
visions of 1682 concerning the four propositions con- 
_ tained in the declaration of the Clergy of France of 
that year ” (1. e., Gallicanism) .” 

The idea of uniformity of instruction and of mold- 
ing the young according to a preconceived plan was 
utterly different from that which informed the schools 
of the Idéologues. In them written lectures were for- 
bidden and after the discussion by the lecturer, the 
students debated the problems involved in his talk.” 
The words “liberal ideas” in Napoleon’s plan alone 
suggest this régime. So changed is everything else that 
their presence must be a cynical joke. Whereas the 
Ecoles Centrales, again, had men as different as Volney 
and Bernardin de Saint-Pierre on their teaching staff, 
the Imperial University had a catechism prepared with 
the collaboration of the Papal Legate. The catechism, 
which is worth reading begins: 

“What are the duties of Christians towards the 
princes who govern them, and what in particular are 
our duties towards Napoleon I, our Emperor? 

“ Christians owe to the princes who govern them, 
and we in particular owe to Napoleon I, our Emperor, 


love, respect, obedience, fidelity, military service, the 
tribute ordered for the preservation and defence of the 


 Duvergier; ‘ Lois, Décrets, etc.,’ P. 1826, XVI 267. 

* For the bright side of the medal, see Picavet; Op. cit. pas- 
sim; for the dark, Maury; Op. cit. 202. Cf. Sainte-Beuve; 
“ Chateaubriand et son Groupe Littéraire,” P. 1861, I 6r. 


3 


18 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


empire and of his throne. . . . To honor and to serve 
the emperor is then to honor and to serve God Himself. 

“ Are there not special motives which ought to bind 
us more strongly to Napoleon I, our Emperor? 

“Yes; for it is he whom God has aroused in diff- 
cult circumstances to establish the public worship of 
the holy religion of our fathers, and to be its protector. 
He has restored and preserved public order by his pro- 
found and active wisdom; he defends the state by his 
powerful arm; he has become the anointed of the Lord 
by the consecration received from the Sovereign Pon- 
tiff, head of the Church Universal. 

“What should one think of those who might fail in 
their duty towards our emperor? 

“ According to the Apostle Paul, they would be re- 
sisting the established order of God Himself, and would 
be making themselves worthy of eternal damnation.” * 


This is a far cry from the republican catechisms pub- 
lished during the Revolution. 

“What is the communion?” asks the Citoyen Poite- 
vin in his. 

“Tt is the association proposed to all rational peo- 
ples by the French republic to form in the future but 


one great family of brothers, who know not nor en- 
shrine either idol or tyrant.” 


There can be no doubt that Napoleon’s is more con- 
ducive to a stable government. It not only insists on 


* A fuller English translation of this can be found in F. M. 
Andersen; ‘“ Constitutions and other Select Documents illus- 
trative of the History of Fr.,’ 2d ed., Minneapolis, 1908, p. 
312. Compare Napoleon’s words to Queen Louise of Prussia, 
“ There is a Providence which directs all, of which I am merely 
the instrument,” in Blennerhassett; “Mme. de Staél et son 
Temps,” P. 1890, III 200. ; 

*“ Catechisme républicain etc.,” par le Citoyen Poitevin, 
P. n.d. p. 6. Cf. Aulard; “Le Culte etc.,” p. 336. 


AFTER THE REVOLUTION 19 


unity but upon national and dynastic loyalty to pre- 
serve it. It makes the individual exist for the group. 
not the group for the individuals in it. The Emperor 
in exile said that the Consulate was a first step towards 
a goal which he had always had perfectly clearly before 
his eyes, a step towards accustoming the people to 
unity.” This may not have been true at all; yet it is 
true that freedom of thought would have accustomed 
them to diversity. His hope was in the former as the 
hope of all rulers has ever been. 

He acted, however, as if that had been his goal. For 
he rid himself as far as possible of those elements 
which would disturb his victory. In 1803 he dissolved 
the Second Class of the Institut, the class devoted to 
the study of moral and political sciences. It was that 
class, with its six sections given over to the analysis of 
sensations and ideas, to ethics, to social science and 
legislation, to political economy, to history and geo- 
graphy, which worried more than any other the heart 
of him who, as conqueror of Italy, had told the pro- 
fessors of Pavia that the arts and sciences which 
“honor the human mind ” “ ought especially to be re- 


99 37 


vered in free governments. He was himself, as 
everyone knows, a member of the Institut and in 1800 


was unanimously named president of the class of phy- 


°°“ Mémoires de Napoléon,” 2d ed, P. 1830, VI 144. Cf. 
Napoleon’s famous conversation with Benjamin Constant dur- 
ing the Hundred Days, La Minerve Fr., VIII too. 

** Reprint of the Moniteur, 22 messidor IV (10 July 1796), 
XXVIII 347. 


20 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


sical sciences and mathematics.” The thought that the 
great general would condescend to sit with mere men 
of learning was overpowering to the Parisian public. 
The papers never mentioned the fact without titillat- 
ing.” “ After one of the last private sessions of the 
Institut,” said the Gagette de France (17 thermidor 
VIII), “the Consul talked familiarly with his col- 
leagues for more than an hour. Many questions were 
put to him about his last campaign in Italy. The Con- 
sul answered them with that sang-froid, that modesty 
which characterize the great man. The conversation 
was so interesting that it was prolonged for some time. 
The Consul was so gracious, so charming, that he al- 
most made his colleagues forget that they were dis- 
coursing with the first magistrate of a great state.” The 
Institut was no less pleased than the public. The Sec- 
ond Class printed at the head of its memoirs for the 
Year XI—the year in which it was dissolved, “ Was 
there ever a more beautiful sight than that of the chief 
of an immense republic seated by chance among scien- 
tists whom he makes his equals, and modestly sharing 
with them their work and their deliberations, while a 
simple citizen, enjoying as president the honor of the 
chair, is seated above the hero who holds with firm 
hand the reins of the most powerful of empires, ex- 
tends his influence over the destinies of all Europe, 
and makes respected upon the whole surface of the — 
globe this fair great nation, too long unhappy, restored 

*’ Gazette de Fr. 4 germinal VIII, in Aulard; “ P. sous le 


Consulat,” iL (233. 
* See Aulard; “ P. sous le Consulat, “I 7, 62, 81, 252, 582. 


AFTER THE REVOLUTION 21 


to happiness by him? Unus qui nobis .. . restituit 
rem,” © 

There was some reason for Napoleon’s hostility to 
the Second Class. It is freely admitted by the historian 
of this body that its members were anti-imperialistic 
and anti-deistic.” Among them sat Volney, opponent 
of all of Napoleon’s innovations, especially the Con- 
cordat, in spite of all efforts to win him over ; Naigeon, 
the atheist ; Ginguené, editor of the Décade which was 
to be suppressed in 1807; Daunou, who had helped to 
plan the Institut for the Directory, one of the most 
obstinately honest men of the time and persistent lib- 
eral.” Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was a friend, of 
course, but he had little influence.* Irritated perhaps 
by the indifference of these men to passing things— 
and here Bernardin de Saint-Pierre sinned with the 
rest—Napoleon wrote to Ségur that if they discussed 
politics in their meetings, he would break them like a 
mauvais club. And finally, by his consular decree of 
the 3rd of Pluviose, Year XI (23 January 1803), the 
Second Class disappeared from the Institut, which was 
forbidden to occupy itself with moral and political 
science, except in their relation to history, “especially 
very ancient history.” 

““™Mém. de l'Institut: Sci. Mor. et Pol.” IV 2. 

“J. Simon; “Une Académie sous le Directoire,’ P. 1885, 
p. 470. 

™ Picavet; Op. cit. 403 n. 1. 

* Maury; Op. cit. 217, with the report on the concours, 


“Quelles sont les institutions les plus propres 4 fonder la mo- 
rale d’un peuple.” 


22 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


Underneath Napoleon’s hatred of these men, as 
underneath his hatred of Mme. de Staél, was an ap- 
preciation of his inability to use them as he saw fit. 
“To me,” he boasted to Daunou,” “men are tools.” 
If the Idéologues had been willing to serve as such, 
all might have been well. But they were not all of the 
temper of Garat, who turned his coat with the rapidity 
of a conjurer.” They persisted in following the light as 
they wished. And Napoleon understood finally that 
they had defeated him. For in 1808 he said to Fontanes, 
““Fontanes, do you know what excites my wonder most 
in the world? It is the impotence of force to organize 
anything. There are only two powers in the world, the 
sword and the mind. . . . In the long run, the sword 
is always beaten by the mind.” “ 

But his defeat was not complete. For he succeeded 
in breaking the power of the particular group of phil- 
osophers whom he hated, though philosophic reflection 
went on more or less steadily. “In 1810,” says Ler- 
minier, a contemporary, “ nineteen years after the Con- 
stituant, no one remembered either the Revolution or 
philosophy.” Napoleon was in part at least responsible. 
For he introduced and countenanced and encouraged 
the fashion, which was only too easily acquired, of 
sneering not only at the Idéologues, but at philosophy 
in general. | 

“ Picavet; Op. cit. 403 n. I. 

** See the enlightening but often unfair “ Dictionnaire des 


Girouettes,” P. 1815, p. 175. 
* Gautier; Op. cit. 405. 


CHAPTER TWO 
THE ForTUNES OF IDEOLOGY 


Ideology had practically run its course with the sup- 
pression of the Institut. Napoleon’s prestige had made 
it the fashion to use the word as a term of reproach, 
and any airy fancy might be called “ ideology ” irre- 
spective of its origin. The members of the school, to 
all intents and purposes out of the political arena, re- 
tired to the garden of Helvétius in Auteuil, bequeathed 
by Mme. Helvétius to Cabanis, who shared with De- 
stutt de Tracy, the headship of the group. Their re- 
tirement must not be interpreted as absolute seclusion. 
Destutt de Tracy, for instance, was still a senator. It 
means simply that their influence in affairs of state 
was neither sought nor imposed. 

As far as French thought is concerned, the teachings 
of Cabanis were to survive largely in literature and in 
the work of Auguste Comte. They entered Germany 
where we shall not follow them through Schopenhauer. 
We shall see them gaining literary ground in Stendhal 
and in that long list of ‘‘ physiologies”’ which begins 
with Brillat-Savarin and runs through to the ’80o’s. 
In Auguste Comte we shall see them gaining phil- 
osophic ground, linked, however, to the pseudo-science 
of Gall and Spurzheim, for the founder of positivism 
was not always happy in his choice of scientists. De- 
stutt de Tracy, on the other hand, has two disciples, 


23 


24 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


who alter his work but still carry on his tradition. The 
first is Laromiguiére, whose influence is hardly im- 
portant and who—though he lived well into the nine- 
teenth century and gained great popularity—is really 
an eighteenth century figure. The second is Maine 
de Biran, who, beginning in Ideology, ends in Chris- 
tian mysticism. He is the initiator of the important 
voluntaristic tradition in French nineteenth century 
philosophy. 

Although the doctrines of the Ideologists are pre- 
sented with a thoroughness which I could scarcely hope 
to equal in the work of Picavet, “ Les Idéologues,” it 
is perhaps desirable to give here a brief synopsis of 
the main tenets of the school in order to clarify the 
position of their successors. 

The name “Ideology” was invented by Destutt 
de Tracy to denominate that study which was to sup- 
plant metaphysics. It was a study which was obviously 
inspired by Condillac’s sensationalism, although Destutt 
does not agree with all the details of Condillac’s sys- 
tem. Unlike the Germans, he says, who profess phil- 
osophy as one professes religion, the Idéologues adopt 
merely their master’s method. This method, he con- 
tinues, “consists in observing facts with the greatest 
care, in inferring from them only the surest conse- 
quences, in never giving to simple suppositions the sta- 


*Destutt de Tracy; “De la Métaphysique de Kant,’ Mem. 
de l'Institut: Sci. Mor. et Pol., 1V 549. Cf. his memoir, “ Sur 
la Faculté de Penser,” Jd. I 302 and his “ Elémens d’Idéologie,” 
Pt. I, 2d ed., P. An XIII—1804, xvi. 


THE FORTUNES OF IDEOLOGY 25 


bility of facts, in undertaking to bind truths together 
only when they are linked naturally and without gaps, 
in admitting frankly what one does not know, and con- 
stantly preferring absolute ignorance to every assertion 
which is merely probable.”* So far the method seems 
to consist in a sort of radical empiricism and agnosti- 
cism. It requires greater precision and this Destutt 
de Tracy proceeds to give. In treating general ideas, 
he says, a good method is to decompose them, “ to ex- 
amine the elementary ideas from which they are 
extracted, and to go back to the first facts, to the sim- 
ple perceptions, to the sensations from which they 
emanate, if one could reach that point; if not ”»—and 
here his agnosticism appears again—“ one must wait, 
suspend judgment, and renounce the attempt to explain 
what is not known clearly.” This study of ideas, 
“which is only logic treated reasonably,” is what he 
called “ ideology.” 

That the only method worthy of serious considera- 
tion was analysis would have disturbed only Catholics. 
But that analysis will reduce all ideas to sensations was 
a more difficult matter to admit. Destutt de Tracy, 
however, insisted on this point and drew from it a con- 
sequence which separated his philosophy and that of 
Cabanis from that of their contemporaries. 

That point he announced in the preface to his 
“Elémens d’Idéologie ” (An XIII—1804). “ Ideology 
is a part of zoology” (p. xiii). This text may be said 


_*“Meétaph. de Kt.” 550, 578, 594. 


26 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


to account for the reaction of the early nineteenth cen- 
tury to his school. For people during the Empire were 
no longer willing tc admit that they were on a level with 
the brutes. They had a more lofty conception of the 
human spirit. To them ideology, rightly or wrongly, 
was a strict denial of what the Church had always 
taught, for instance. To the Church the zoological as- 
pect of humanity was disgraceful. The thinking pro- 
cesses to her were an elevation towards God, and any 
attempt to identify them with the purely animal func- 
tion was to widen the breach between man and his 
Creator—an end which was not repugnant to the taste 
of Destutt and his followers. 

The sensationalism of Ideology emphasized the ani- 
mality of the human mind. Whenever we think, when- 
ever we judge, remember, desire, we “ feel a sensa- 
tion,” says Destutt (op. cit. 22-25). The only dif- 
ference which he finds between thinking and feeling is 
one of time. Sensations which are no longer in process 
of production are thought; while they are being pro- 
duced, they are felt. But the material of consciousness 
is absolutely homogeneous—it is perception of sensa- 
tions. All of this material naturally comes to us through 
our sense organs. Whence Destutt is able to fortify 
his original proposition that ideology is a part of zool- 
ogy. It is at this point that Cabanis begins his work. 

Destutt de Tracy divides consciousness, what he calls 
the faculty of thinking, into four elementary faculties, 
sensibility, properly so-called, memory, judgment, and 
will (ch. I). Sensibility is the faculty of receiving 
impressions (p. 30) through the nerves (p. 32). The 


THE FORTUNES OF IDEOLOGY 27 


impressions are not only external, such as colors, 
sounds, and so forth (p. 33), but are also internal, such 
as visceral (p. 36) and kinesthetic sensations (p. 37), 
the feelings of well-being and malaise (p. 38). Mem- 
ory is a kind of internal impression (ch. III). Judg- 
ment is simply a sensation of relation (ch. IV) and 
will is the sensation of desire (ch. V). The will, he 
says (p. 71), “in only like our other faculties, a result 
of our organism, but it has this peculiarity, that it is 
always the cause of our happiness or unhappiness.” 

Now all the “ideas” or thoughts which we experi- 
ence are complex, but if we could experience a sensa- 
tion for the first time without remembering others like 
it, or judging it, or desiring it, we should have the ex- 
perience of a simple sensation. But, as a matter of 
fact, this never happens and our minds are full of com- 
plex ideas. We unite similar sensations, discarding their 
differences, to form what we call “ general ideas.” But 
we must never fall into the error of thinking that these 
general ideas have other than a mental existence 
(ch. VI). 

If we are thus limited to a life of sensations, how 
does it happen that we have any notion of the objects 
which produce the sensations? It is certain, says De- 
stutt (p. 123), that the internal sensations tell us 
nothing except that we exist. The same holds true 
for tastes, odors, and sounds (p. 124). Even sight 
(p. 126) and touch (p. 128) upon examination turn 
out to be as secretive as the other senses when it is a 
question of their revealing a non-sensory cause. De- 


28 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


stutt concludes that it is through our powers of move- 
ment and the feeling of resistance (p. 152) that some- 
thing beyond ourselves makes itself felt. One can make 
the simple experiment of a voluntary movement. Sup- 
pose one wills to push through a solid block of stone. 
The obstacle is stubborn and resists. But since we can- 
not both will a movement and will its annihilation at 
the same time, we conclude that something not our- 
selves exists to obstruct our will. It is thus that 
Destutt hopes to escape from subjectivism. It will be 
noticed that the external world is not revealed in direct 
sensation but by a process of reasoning about our 
sensations. 

It is worth remarking that what Destutt de Tracy 
felt to be a philosophic absurdity was at that very time 
being utilized by Fichte as the cornerstone of his 
metaphysics. The self-obstruction which Destutt felt 
that the will could never voluntarily incur was for his 
German contemporary the secret of the cosmic drama. 
This material world which met our volition with re- 
sistance furnished for Fichte not evidence of an ob- 
jective something hostile to and different in kind from 
the active Ego, but a construction of that Ego created 
for its own moral ends. More curious than the fact 
itself is the environment in which the fact arose. The 
Frenchman was faced with a world in which a will, 
Napoleon’s, had conquered all resistance to such an 
extent that the superstitious looked upon it as some- 
thing more than human. The German, on the contrary, 
was surrounded either with human beings too placid 


~~ 


THE FORTUNES OF IDEOLOGY 29 


to abandon their preconceived ideas or, later in his life, 
broken by foreign invasion and humiliation. 

We see that Destutt de Tracy appreciated the impor- 
tance of the will. It was an appreciation shared not 
only by his contemporaries in Germany but also by 
some of those in France. But Destutt kept the discus- 
sion to a quasi-psychological level instead of general- 
izing it into a metaphysical theory. He had already 
asserted that the will was merely a kind of impression— 
the sensation of desire. This definition he continued to 
maintain even in his treatise on the will, in which he 
might have been expected to indulge in greater liber- 
ties. It is because of this definition that later phil- 
osophers were to object most strongly to Ideology. For 
desire is something “ passive,’ and they were to insist 
that the will be “ active,” if man’s moral force and ob- 
ligation were not to be weakened or even eliminated. 
Destutt, however, saw no more need of making his 
theory of knowledge fit a desirable or traditional ethics 
than he saw of making it fit a traditional theology. 
He coldly founded our idea of personality and prop- 
erty, our needs and means of satisfying them, our ideas 
of right and wrong, on his peculiar type of will. He 
would found upon its law the laws of economics and 
politics, also, but unfortunately we cannot follow him 
there. 

It is fairly obvious, I take it, why Destutt’s theory 
should die out. He makes two points especially impor- 


*“Elémens d’Idéologie: IV*® et V°® Pties. “Traité de la 
Volonté,” P. 1815. 


30 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


tant, the analysis of complex ideas into simple ones, 
as far as that is possible, and the significance of the 
data of sensation. The method of analysis was his 
substitute for what his predecessors had called “ Rea- 
son.” It was the weapon of the philosophical opposi- 
tion. Its enemies were bound to be not only the Catho- 
lics but all reactionaries, for it gave the individual the 
power to substantiate his own beliefs. Nor does analy- 
sis show us grounds for accepting what authority 
wishes us to believe. It does not permit us to put cre- 
dence in suprasensory truths. For in such theses as the 
reactionaries had to propose, there was always a grain 
of mystery beyond which analysis could not go, and 
beyond which the human mind was forced to go, unless 
it was willing, as Destutt’s was, to suspend judgment. 
Destutt could afford to be agnostic at a certain point; 
the reactionaries could not. 

The insistence that sensory data were fundamental 
for true knowledge gave the reactionaries another 
ground for complaint. What sensation could account 
for the truth of the doctrine of the Trinity? Sensations 
have always seemed low to some people, perhaps be- 
cause they require a body, perhaps because they do not 
show us all the things in which we enjoy believing. It 
was their lowness more than anything else which in- 
spired most of the opposition to them. Had the sensa- 
tionalists been willing to circumscribe the field of 
knowledge so as to exclude knowledge of right and 
wrong, all might have been well. Destutt, as we have 
seen, refused to do this, and put the basis of morality 
on the same plane as that of logic. But reactionaries 


THE FORTUNES OF IDEOLOGY 31 


wanted morality to be on a higher plane. Even when 
Victor Cousin, who as a youth had written enthusiasti- 
cally of analysis,, made morality theistic but rational, 
they rebelled. They wanted it beyond the reach of rea- 
son. There were ineradicable differences of what one 
can only call temperament which made the Ideologue 
carry his sensationalism to the limit without fear of 
consequences and prevented the Catholic from giving 
up even the first inch of ground. It was, in other words, 
not the logical outcome of their philosophies which in- 
terested these men so much as their practical outcome, 
although they would have fought to the last to prove 
that their particular practical outcome was alone logical 
and consistent. 

The zoological aspect of ideology was more appar- 
ent in the work of Cabanis than in that of Destutt 
de Tracy. For in his “ Rapports du Physique et du 
Moral de l’Homme” (2d ed., p. 1843), he states 
definitely that the physical is the same thing as the 
mental “considered under certain particular points of 
view” (p. 73). He traces his beliefs from what he 
calls the discovery. of Locke that all ideas come from 
sensation (p. 45). But if sensations are the last term 
in psychology, physical sensibility is the last term in 
biology. There is neither knowledge nor life without 
sensation. Like his colleague, he says, “If we ex- 
perienced but one sensation, we should have but one 
idea ; and if to this sensation were linked a determina- 
tion of the will whose effect was hindered by a resis- 


*“ De Methodo sive de Analysi,” 19 July 1813. 


32, FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


tance, we should know that independently of us there 
exists something; we could know nothing more” 
(p. 74). But since sensibility varies among individuals 
according to sex and what he calls “temperament,” in 
the same individual according to age or health, in all 
by climate and the totality of physical habits or what 
one might call the mode of living (p. 75), it is of 
utmost importance to study these variations if one is 
either philosopher, moralist, or legislator. 

There were terrifying conclusions to be drawn from 
the work of Cabanis. The Ego, as in Destutt, is simply 
the feeling of effort due to the operations of the will; 
we have several Egos, but usually refer the egoistic 
feeling to the common center of all sensations (p. 442). 
We find that the source of happiness consists in nothing 
more than “the free exercise of the faculties, in the 
feeling of force and ease with which one puts them 
into action” (p. 181). Even the happiness, which is 
based upon so physical a ground, turns out to be a 
kind of stoical virtuousness, justified by self-interest 
(p. 51). The “ faculties of man” are “ assuredly noth- 
ing but the more generalized statement (énoncé) of 
the operations produced by the play of his organs ” 
(p. 230). Such conclusions and others like them could 
not but be repugnant to thinkers of a spiritualistic turn 
of mind. 

But there was another objection to Ideology which 
occupied the contemporary thinkers. Ideology seemed 
to mean that man was “ passive,’ the mere statue of 
Condillac quickened into life by the stimulus of sights 
and sounds and smells. The feeling is well expressed 


THE FORTUNES OF IDEOLOGY 33 


by the Abbé Bautain writing much later, in 1839, when 
he says, “ The man of to-day with moral needs more 
profound, conscience more enlightened, ideas more 
vast, views which tend towards the universal, sublime 
presentiments, burning anxiety—the man of to-day is 
no longer his (Condillac’s) man nor his statue. He no 
longer recognizes himself in a sensation-machine, in 
an ideological mannikin or in a mass organized to feel.” 
After all it was the human will which seemed at that 
time to be productive of most of the changes, at least 
in history. How could one convince men who had seen 
a group of commoners overturn the government of 
France and an unknown adventurer from Corsica con- 
quer almost all of Western Europe, that they were the 
playthings of forces external to themselves? What was 
particularly impressive in the history of this time was 
the progress made by man in spite of external obstacles. 
The existence of Napoleon alone would have been in- 
ducement enough to think that some account must be 
given of humanity which would place his initiative in 
an important place. It was this task which the non- 
Catholic philosophers attempted above all others. 


II 


Of the two disciples of the Idéologues who had an 
influence in the nineteenth century as metaphysicians, 
Maine de Biran and Laromiguiere, it is the latter who 
is the less wayward. A professor in the Imperial Uni- 

*“ Philos.-Psychol. Expérimentale,” Strasbourg et P., 1839, 
1 xxi. 


4 


34 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


versity, a man of letters, he preserved the self-assur- 
ance of one who is used to charming audiences and a 
reading public and advanced but cautiously into new 
realms of philosophic enquiry. The philosophies then 
in vogue in Germany, for instance, left him cold, and 
in one of the later editions of his major treatise, 
“Lecons de Philosophie,” he thought that he had 
settled the question of the merits of Kantianism by 
proving that it is nothing but a new form of scep- 
ticism. He had no doubts about the validity of his own 
teachings. He had on the contrary, a full confidence 
that what he advocated could not be false, for his 
method was correct and his principles were sound. If 
he had any doubts at all, it was about the more ulti- 
mate problems such as the interaction of soul and body 
and about the value of life.’ 

His writings were not extensive. He opened his 
literary career, when still a Doctrinaire, with “ Elé- 
ments de Métaphysique” (1793), a work which he 
later suppressed. In 1796 appeared his two memoirs, 
“Sur la détermination de ces mots: Analyse des Sen- 
sations”’ and “ Extrait d’un mémoire sur la détermi- 
nation du mot Jdée’’ which earned the praise of Ca- 
banis. In 1805 appeared his “ Paradoxes de Con- 
dillac, ou Réflexions sur la Langue des Calculs.”’ 
From then on he kept silent until in 1811-1812 he 
gave his famous lectures which were printed as “ Le- 
cons de Philosophie.’ It is upon this that his fame 
rests and six editions of it were called for between 


6 << Lecons de Philos.” P. 1815, I 93. 


THE FORTUNES OF IDEOLOGY 35 


1815 and 1844. This last edition, which was pos- 
thumous, contains a few minor writings until then 
unpublished, The apparent charm of his published lec- 
tures was but a reflection of the charm of his speech. 
“Auditors of all ages,” says Janet,’ “ pupils and mas- 
ters, followed these brilliant, clear, and methodical les- 
sons. M. de Fontanes came to one of them, the lesson 
on definition. The charm of M. Laromiguiére’s words 
was, according to the testimony of his auditors, irre- 
sistible. ‘Who will again give us,’ says M. Counsin, 
‘these improvisations, of which the happiest style af- 
fords but a weakened image, these incomparable lec- 
tures, wherein the grace of Montaigne, the wisdom of 
Locke, and sometimes also the suavity of Fénelon 
were effortlessly united with supreme clearness.’ ” 

These traits, chosen with Cousin’s habitual eclectic 
enthusiasm, indicate how highly Laromiguére was re- 
garded by his contemporaries—though Cousin was 
speaking after his predecessor’s death. They do not 
indicate, however, Laromiguiére’s contribution to the 
history of French philosophic ideas. 

As we have suggested, the main alteration which he 
made in Ideology was the introduction, or better the 
extension of the role of “activity ” in epistemology. 
There seemed to be obviously powers in the soul of 
man which were not mere mosaics of passively re- 
ceived sensations. Destutt himself had admitted that 
no perception was produced from a sensory stimulus 


T 66 


*“T aromiguiére,” La Liberté de Penser, R. Philos. et Littér- 
aire, 1848, I 261. 


36 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


until activity had been excited.’ Cabanis had insisted, 
as one of the major portions of his thesis, that though 
we might all have the same sensations—by which he 
means only external sensations—yet our ideas differ, 
since our individual constitution influences them and 
differentiates them from the ideas of our fellows. We 
count for something in the makeup of our knowledge. 
Laromiguiére’s pupil, L. J. J. Daube, a professor in 
the Ecole Centrale des Hautes-Pyrenées, thought that 
he was distinguishing sharply between sensation and 
activity in his study, the “‘ Essai d’Idéologie ” (1803). 
“T am active,” he says, “ when I am myself the cause 
of what takes place within me. I am passive when the 
cause of what takes place within me is not I. That 
being posited it is evident that I am passive in sensa- 
tion, since its cause is without me; that it does not 
depend on me to procure myself agreeable sensations 
when I am experiencing disagreeable ones; without 
which I would never be disagreeably affected. I am 
active, on the contrary, in attention, since it depends 
on me whether I shall give it or refuse it. But is it 
not absurd to say that an active faculty is only a pas- 
sive faculty transformed?” That was exactly what, 
he maintained, the classic Condillacist was saying. He 
tried further to prove the independence of sensation 
and attention by pointing out that the intensity of a 
sensation varies with the stimulus, whereas the inten- 
sity of a feeling attended to varies with the attention 
we voluntarily give it. 


°“ Métaph. de Kt.” p. 551. 


THE FORTUNES OF IDEOLOGY 37 


It was with a similar distinction that Laromiguiére’s 
epistemology took its start.’ “ We have,” he says in 
Mes Lecons * (Ed: of 1815, I 91 f.),; “two sorts of 
facts in inverse order, first, the action of the object on 
the organ, of the organ on the brain, and of the brain 
on the soul; second, the action or reaction of the soul 
on the brain; communication of the motion received 
by the brain to the organ, which flees from the object 
or approaches it.” These types of experience are ac- 
tivity and passivity. But so sure is Laromiguiére that 
people since Condillac have forgotten this truth, that 
in spite of the fact that the distinction was known and 
made much of in early Greek philosophy, he goes into 
the matter at some length, winding up by saying, “All 
mankind knows, then, and cannot not know, that there 
is a difference between seeing and looking, between 
listening and hearing ; it knows, in other words, that we 
are now passive, now active, that the soul is by turns 
passive and active.” 

Just what activity is Laromiguiere does not say. 
But he recognizes the seeming impropriety of not de- 
fining it. He excuses himself on the ground that it is 
a primitive idea in his system. “ The definition of an 
idea is . . . possible only when one has an anterior 
idea from which one derives what one proposes to 
define. Whence it follows that the fundamental idea 
of a science is and can never be defined. . . . We shall 


*Janet maintains that Daube’s book was the source of L.’s 
main idea. V. Op. cit. 257 n. 1. Daube continued to combat 
L., who in his early work, “ Elémens de métaph.” had sustained 
Tracy’s point that sensation is active. 


38 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


not define ‘attention’ nor the activity of the soul, be- 
cause in the soul nothing is anterior to its activity: I 
mean nothing anterior from which activity might de- 
rive its origin.” (Lecons I 156 f.) He would prob- 
ably, if pressed, have fallen back on the definition of 
activity given by his pupil, Daube, although the use 
of the word “cause”? would leave the modern reader, 
but not the reader of his day, dissatisfied. 

Laromiguiére seems to have felt no uneasiness about 
his distinction between activity and passivity and saw 
in the innateness of activity a basic fact for the under- 
standing of the human mind. With it and passivity 
as a foundation, he was able to build up the superstruc- 
ture of the human faculties, and having provided for 
an active faculty in the inventory of his elements, he 
is not at a loss to account for one when he comes to 
the composites. 

The human intelligence for Laromiguiére seems to 
be concerned with three interests, discovering facts, 
grasping their relations, reducing them to a system. 
This is quite in accord with the tradition of Condillac 
who also saw the world as an arrangement of elemen- 
tary “ facts”; in the tradition of Bacon, if you will, 
and perhaps in the tradition of Socrates himself. A 
world which can be understood by the accurate group- 
ing of particulars under general laws is a world which 
has place alone for classification, systematizing, re- 
arrangements. It was a proper philosophy for times 
when the historical sense had not been highly de- 
veloped. Laromiguiére was not insensible to the charm 








THE FORTUNES OF IDEOLOGY 39 


10 ¢¢ 


of this philosophy. “ System,” he wrote” “ when it is 
carried to its perfection, is the highest degree of knowl- 
edge to which the human mind can rise. It offers a 
whole science in a single fact, in a single idea, in a 
single word which represents this idea or this fact. 
But how rare are good systems!” 

Accordingly, when you have an idea given you, one 
of the best ways to grasp its meaning is to analyse it. 
This, as we have seen, is in agreement with the tenets 
of Ideology, and was in fact a simple acknowledg- 
ment of the justice of the Institut’s existence in part. 
The Institut existed for the coordination and analysis 
of knowledge; its raison d’étre was the faith of Idé- 
ologues in the very ideas which Laromiguiére carried 
over into the nineteenth century. Laromiguiéere never 
lost sight of this fundamental point. He retained it 
in his “Lecons” unchanged and assigned to meta- 
physics no other role than that of going back to the 
origin of our ideas (Lecons I 271).” His colleague, 
Daunou, had assigned this role to logic, giving to 
metaphysics “‘the less extended’”’ function of finding 
“the most precise and striking proofs of the existence 
of God and of the future life’’* But for Laromi- 
guiére such a function is futile since its execution is 
impossible. 

* Mem. de I’Inst. I 458. 

41Cf. .“Lecons” I 270; also Mem. de TInst: SMP. I 460. 

™See his “Plan d’Education présenté a l’Assemblée na- 


tionale, au. nom des Instituteurs de 1’Oratoire,’ P. 1790, p. 
14 i. 2, ' 


40 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


The Condillacist point of view made it almost inevi- 
table that Laromiguiére should love symmetries. He 
had divided the primary faculties of the understand- 
ing into attention, comparison, and reasoning, to each 
of which he assigned the satisfaction of one of the 
primary needs of the understanding (Legons I tor). 
He must now investigate the will, and to that too he 
will assign three faculties, on a parallel with the facul- 
ties of the understanding (Lecons I 167). To atten- 
tion corresponds desire, the faculty which attracts one 
to an object; to comparison corresponds preference, 
by which the value of an object is decided; to reason- 
ing corresponds liberty, the power to act or not to act. 
Facile and attractive as the analysis is, it makes one 
puzzle over what there was beyond its facility to con- 
vince men of its truth. 

The obvious answer will be that Laromiguiére had 
restored to the soul a certain autonomy which it 
seemed to lack in the reign of Condillac.” This meant, 
whether men understood it or not, a satisfaction of 
that egoism which reached its height in German phi- 

™ See Janet; Op cit. (p. 361): “L.’s title to fame in con- 
temporary philosophy is to have restored to activity its true 
role in the human soul. I do not mean to say that he studied it 
as profoundly as it could have been studied, nor even that his 
discussion of the system of Condillac is as decisive as he 
thought. But is it not a great deal, after an entire century had 
repeated with Condillac that the human soul was only sensation, 
to return to the soul its independence, its initiative, the power 
to act or to react?” Cf. p. 366: “ There are no innate ideas 
[in L.’s system] for all our feelings have their cause in ex- 


perience; but the soul is not a tabula rasa; it is originally and 
essentially a force, an activity.” 


THE FORTUNES OF IDEOLOGY 4I 


losophy and was soon to burst forth along with many 
other things in French romanticism. Why people 
should have demanded that their egoistic yearnings be 
satished, one can only answer with a guess. Perhaps 
it was the success of Napoleon and the Revolutionists 
before him, perhaps it was the increasing success of 
the natural sciences which, like these political suc- 
cesses, showed people that they could secure the inde- 
pendence of authority without incurring some enor- 
mous penalty—at least in this world. Be all this as 
it may, the assertion of the human will was fashiona- 
ble at this time and people would listen to any phi- 
losopher who told them in technical language what 
they had heard only in the whisperings of their hearts. 

By appointing Laromiguiére to a chair in the 
Faculté des Lettres, the Emperor gave official sanc- 
tion to a type of thinking which was his personal 
abomination. He had founded the University, he said, 
as a means of directing moral and political opinion. It 
was possible that he was not so aware as Fontanes was 
of the nature of Laromiguiére’s teachings. For it is 
hard to see how anything in the “Lecgons” would 
make a man a better imperialist. Was Napoleon not 
misled by the subject matter of these courses into 
thinking that they were harmless? Laromiguiére said 
nothing about politics and taught a mild form of 
idealistic ethics. As his most acute critic has said, his 
doctrine was rather a work of literature than of phi- 
losophy.* Yet his method was as dangerous to authori- 


4 Janet; Op. cit. 367. Cf. Mignet; “ Not. historique sur la vie 
et les travaux de M. L.” Mem. de I’Inst., 1856, XX VI 84. 


42 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


tarianism as that of his predecessors. He preached, 
as they did, introspection and the analysis of ideas. 
If the Second Class of the Institut was an organiza- 
tion harmful to the state, so was the doctrine of 
Laromiguiere. Perhaps Napoleon suspected this after 
some time, for Laromiguiére withdrew from his chair. 
No one has definitely discovered the exact cause of 
his withdrawal. Picavet, who has studied the case more 
thoroughly than most writers, hesitates to lay the 
blame upon the government, quoting Laromiguiere’s 
friend, Saphary, to the effect that sickness was the 
cause. It may very well have been sickness, but it is 
not to be forgotten that if Napoleon did not interfere 
with the liberty of teaching in this instance, it was one 
of the very few cases in which he did not. 


Il 


The revolt against passivity shows itself most strik- 
ingly and most effectively in Maine de Biran, a man 
who begins as a disciple of the group at Auteuil and 
ends as a Christian mystic. As early as 1794 he said 
of himself, “I should like, if ever I were capable of 
undertaking anything continuous, to see how far the 
soul 1s active, how far it can modify external impres- 
sions, augment or diminish their intensity by the 
attention it gives them, examine to what extent it is 
He continued the search 


15 


master of attention.” 


**“ Maine de Biran, Sa Vie et ses Pensées,” P. 1857, 123. 
Hereafter “ Pensées.” 


THE FORTUNES OF IDEOLOGY 43 


throughout his life, until he succeeded, according to 
Jules Simon,” in bringing about the ruin of the phi- 
losophy which had been dominant in France for the 
past fifty years. 

Maine de Biran’s interest in activity is practical. 
That is, he wished to find out how far the soul is active 
not for any epistemological end in itself, but in order 
to found upon his discoveries an ethics.” Moralists, he 
maintained, are persistently telling us to control our 
passions and direct our emotions, but they never justify 
their program by establishing the possibility of its 
realization. He for his part felt himself to be the prey 
of his thoughts and dreams, even though he was less 
passionate than other men.” He felt the need of a 
guiding philosopher.” “ At times,” he said,” “I feel 
myself burning for goodness, I adore virtue; at others 
I feel myself but lukewarm, I relinquish my hold and 
become indifferent to duty.” If only there were some- 


*« M de B.,” Revue des Deux Monde (hereafter RDM), 1841, 
IV 658. Cf. Ravaisson; “La Philos. en Fr. au dix-neuviéme 
Siecle,” 5° ed., P. 1904, p. 15: “ To re-discover activity under the 
passivity of sensations, which since Hume seemed to explain all. 
was to re-discover the spirit itself under the material world. 
Strengthened by this discovery, philosophy was soon to free 
itself from physics, under which Locke, Hume, and Condillac 
himself had, so to speak, crushed it. Two men especially aided 
in bringing this about: Maine de Biran and Ampere.” 

7“ Pensées,” 124. 

era: 

* Id. 126. 

moo. 128. 


44 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


one to analyse the will as Condillac analysed the 
understanding ! * 

But this could not be done, he maintained,” without 
an equal understanding of man’s physical organism. 
He was convinced that the body counts for more than 
we usually suspect in the determination of our mental 
states, and, like a good disciple of Cabanis, he pictured 
to himself in his notebooks the possible physiological 
causes of certain of his moods.” “If we recognized 
that our troubled state, our state of anxiety, is almost 
purely physical, we should look upon it as an illness, 
and having tested that which can guarantee us or pre- 
vent us from falling into it so often, we should put 
these means into practice.” “ He insisted then upon the 
value of full self-consciousness, just as he would 
later on. 

The thoughts indicated above were written in 1794 
and 1795. At that time their author was administrator 
of the Dordogne. His time for study was limited and 
it was not until 1798 that he could return to his home 
and his reflections. These were then directed by the 
Institut’s concours of 1799 to the question of “ the in- 
fluence of habit upon the faculty of thinking.” It can 
be easily seen why this question was of a certain im- 
portance to the Idéologues. Habit is, they believed, 
that which makes us formulate general ideas, since it is 
the constant repetition of experiences which gradually 


ait 

Ha Ne, 
* Id. 138. 
** Id. 140. 


THE FORTUNES OF IDEOLOGY A5 


forms our intellect; habit is the cement which binds 
our elementary sensations together. The quotation 
from Bonnet which Maine de Biran put at the head of 
the essay which he submitted, “ What are all the opera- 
tions of the soul but movements and repetitions of 
movements?” put the matter in a nutshell. 

It was somewhat of a problem to account for activity 
in the behavior of a such a soul, for movements in the 
eighteenth century were looked upon as the continua- 
tion of previous movements whose origin went back at 
least to God. But Maine de Biran would content him- 
self with something which stopped far short of abso- 
lute spontaneity. He was not as yet stubbornly advo- 
cating that each active soul is a first cause. He was 
satisfied if the soul could be shown to have merely 
some effect in the productions of consciousness. Thus, 
following Destutt de Tracy,” he maintains that active 
and passive states are fundamental and irreducible— 
a point of view like that of Laromiguiere and Daube. 
One is passive in sensation or affection for “it is evi- 
dent that [one] exerts no power on the modification, 
that one has no means at hand either to interrupt or to 
change it.” * One is active in voluntary movement. “ It 
is in truth J who create my modification, I can begin 
it, suspend it, vary it in every way, and the conscious- 
ness that I have of my activity is for me as evident as 
the modification itself.” Activity and passivity are 
thus again linked with the problem of causation. 

% “ Habitude,’ Oeuvres, ed. Tisserand, II 22 n. 1. 


Mid 720. 
* Id. 21. 


46 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


This problem was not so difficult for Maine de Biran 
as for us. He believed that we have an immediate con- 
sciousness of a causal operation when we exert effort.” 
It is effort which became the keynote of his whole 
philosophy ; which revealed to him the secrets of the 
most trying problems of his day. But, as he developed, 
the concept of effort developed with him. 

It is effort which explains why the resistance of the 
external world to our movements gives us an idea of 
its existence, an idea, it will be recalled, of Destutt 
de Tracy’s. If we did not meet the resistance of physi- 
cal objects with the force of our movements, they 
would no more exist for us than if they did not meet 
the force of our movements with their resistance. It 
is a situation like that expressed in Newton’s third 
law of motion. There are two forces at work when 
we exert pressure on a physical object, our pressure 
and the object’s resistance, both of which are needed 
to produce our consciousness of the object. As he says 
in a manuscript note to the Institut’s copy of his 
memoir, “ Effort is a mean term between the action 
and the effect, or between the motor force which be- 


*° Id. 25. Janet in “Un Précurseur de M. de B.,” R. Pul., 
1882, XIV shows how much M. de B. may have owed to the 
obscure Rey Régis’s “ Hist. Naturelle de l’Ame,” Montpellier 
1789, not to be confused with Dr. Charp’s (La Mettrie’s) book 
of the same name. Like Régis Biran believes in (a) the 
psychical importance of effort, (b) the motive force of the 
soul as against the Cartesian doctrine of inertia, (c) the differ- 
ence between the movement of our organs from without and 
from within (p. 371). He differs however in founding his 
whole psychology on effort; Régis sees in effort simply one 
psychic fact (p. 372). 


ee 


THE FORTUNES OF IDEOLOGY 47 


longs to the individual and the resistance which belongs 
to the body: It is their means of communication.” ” 
Later on he reproduced this triad in the physical ex- 
ternal world, the psychical internal world, and their 
means of communication, the Ego. Not to anticipate, 
he was here carrying a step further Destutt’s attempted 
escape from subjectivism, by examining the fact of re- 
sistance to which Destutt had called attention and 
describing it in terms of inner experience. 

In the second place, effort revealed to the individual 
his will. For movements which are performed with- 
out effort are involuntary unless they have become 
habitual. Whenever effort is exerted Maine de Biran 
believed that the will expresses itself and, he said in 
another development of Destutt, the human personality 
is revealed. 

But even now he went to the extent of maintaining 
that in the activity of the will man perceives or knows, 
and that without this activity of the will, knowledge 
or perception would be impossible.” Thus he achieved 
that revolt from sensationalism which Destutt had be- 
gun but which people in general still maintain was to 
be undertaken. If it was not noticeable, it was because 
_ the Maine de Biran of the “ Memoir on the Influence of 
Habit ” had not as yet seen the metaphysical conse- 
quences of the doctrine. One who was living in the 
Ideological atmosphere could hardly have been ex- 
pected to. But what he had begun to understand was 
that the analysis of consciousness into sensation and 


* “ Pensées,” 25 n. 
lhe 20. 


48 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


their products and something non-sensory in origin 
made further clarification necessary. 

His opportunity came in the concours of 1803-1804, 
“How should we decompose the faculty of thinking 
and what elementary faculties should we see in it?” 
His memoir, which was crowned, discarded sensation- 
alism once and for all. He had already distinguished 
two psychical elements, the active and the passive. He 
now proposed to give an introspective account of the 
active elements. The main fact, needless to say, which 
he discovered was “an actual exercise of certain or- 
ganic instruments.’ He later amended this to read, 
“The primitive fact for us is in no wise a sensation 
alone, but the idea of a sensation, which takes place 
only insofar as the sensible impression concurs with 
the personal individuality of the Ego.” But here 
again he had not made a striking advance beyond the 
doctrines of Destutt, in spite of the general opinion of . 
historians, for Destutt too had maintained that a sen- 
sation did not become a perception until it had excited 
activity. When Maine de Biran, moreover, maintained 
that ‘a being reduced [to passive sensibility] not only 
could not acquire any idea of objects external to him, 
but also could have no consciousness of his own sensi- 
tive being, that he would not be an individual person 
and that he could never say, ‘J/,’”” he was practically 
repeating what Destutt had said before in his “ Traité 
d’Idéologie.” And when he argued that self-conscious- 
ness, or consciousness of the Ego, can arise only 


** “* Fondements,” I 39; cf. I 214. 
ie Os Las, 


THE FORTUNES OF IDEOLOGY 49 


through the exercise of a “suprasensory and supra- 
organic” activity, an act of will which is beyond and 
above sensation, he went back at least to Rousseau’s 
argument in the “ Profession de Foi du Vicaire Savo- 
yard,” to the epistemological importance of which he 
seems to have been blind. 

At the risk of being more tedious than even scholar- 
ship requires, let us digress for a paragraph or two to 
clarify this historical matter. In the “ Profession 
de Foi’’ Rousseau had argued among other things for 
a recognition of what he called the intuitive method. 
By the intuitive method he had proved to his own satis- 
faction that he existed and that he was affected by 
sensation, the cause of which was external to him. 
He then went on to say in an important passage, 


“To perceive is to feel; to compare is to judge; 
to judge and to feel are not the same thing. By sensa- 
tion, objects are given to me separate, isolated, such as 
they are in nature; by comparison I move them, | 
transport them, so to speak, I put them one upon the 
other to pronounce upon their difference or their like- 
ness, and in general upon all their relations. Accord- 
ing to me the distinctive faculty of the active or intel- 
ligent being is to be able to give some sense to this 
word ‘is.’ I look in vain in the purely sensitive being 
for fe intelligent force which superimposes and 
which then pronounces judgment. . . . This passive 
being will feel each object separately, or it will even 
feel the total object formed of the two; but having no 
force to lay one against the other, it will never com- 
pare them, it will not judge them.” “ Comparative 
ideas,” he continues, “greater,” “less,” for instance, 
“are certainly not sensations, although my mind pro- 
duces them only on occasion of my sensations.” 


* Id. 
~ 


50 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


It is because of the mind’s activity that error is 
possible and communicated between individuals.” 

So much would suggest Biran’s point that the Ego 
is outside of sensations and “superior” to them. But 
Rousseau goes even further and distinguishes between 
motion imparted to an object and motion initiated by 
the object, and applies the distinction just as Biran 


* The matter may be extended in a, foot-note by the follow- 
ing quotation from the famous “ Hermes” of James Harris 
(Works of James Harris, Esq., new ed., Lond. 1803, II), origi- 
nally produced in 1751. “By an Energy as spontaneous and 
familiar to its Nature, as the seeing of Color is familiar to the 
Eye, it [the soul] discerns at once what is MANny in ONE; 
what in things Dissimilar and Different is Similar and the 
Same.” (p. 361.) There follows a note, “This CoNNEc- 
tive Act of the Soul, by which it views ONE IN Many, 
is perhaps one of the principal Acts of its most excellent Part. 
It is this removes that impenetrable mist, which renders Objects 
of Intelligence invisible to the lower faculties. Were it not for 
this, even the sensible World (with the help of all our Sensa- 


tion) would appear as unconnected, as the words of an Index. . 


It is certainly not the Figure alone, nor the Touch alone, nor 
the Odour alone, that makes the Rose, but it is made up of all 
these, and other attributes UNITED; not an unknown Consti- 
tution of insensible Parts, but a known Constitution of sensible 
Part, unless we chuse to extirpate the possibility of natural 
Knowledge. 

“What then perceives this CoNSTITUTION or UNION? ... 
Can it be any of the Senses? .. . No one of these, we know, 
can pass the limits of its own province. Were the Smell 
to perceive the union of the Odour and the Figure, it would not 
only be Smell, but it would be Sight also. It is the same in 
other instances. We must necessarily therefor recur to some 
HIGHER COLLECTIVE Power, to give us a prospect of Nature, 
even in these her subordinate Wholes, much more in that 
comprehensive Whole, whose sympathy is universal, and of 
which these smaller Wholes are all no more than Parts.” 


a 


THE FORTUNES OF IDEOLOGY 51 


does, the first to sensations—passive modifications of 
the organism, the second to the will, which alone can 
cause movement. “In a word, all motion which is not 
produced by another can only come from a spontaneous 
voluntary act. Inanimate bodies act only by movement 
and there are no real actions without will. This is my 
first principle. I believe then that a will moves the uni- 
verse and animates nature. This is my first dogma.” 
When he is asked how he knows all this, he answers, 
“Only by immediate intuition.” 

Though Biran had read and written on the “ Profes- 
sion of Faith,” he failed to see in it the statement of the 
very principles which he was later to discover for him- 
self. On the contrary, his reflections on the “ Profes- 
sion” limit themselves strictly to questions of morality. 
He makes no comment whatsoever on the epistemo- 
logical importance of the work.” His Rousseauist doc- 
trines came more probably from Kant unless he thought 
them out entirely by himself. For we find him quoting 
with approval from Kant’s early dissertation, “ De 
mundi sensibilis atque intelligibilis forma et principtis,” 
“An intellectual conception abstracts from everything 
sensible and is not abstracted from the sensible, and 
perhaps should more rightly be called ABSTRAHENS 


5 See “ Premier Journal,” Oeuvres, I. Nor have other writers 
up to the present. Even Alexis Bertrand, who sees the common 
master of Kant and Biran in Rousseau says that it is R.’s inter- 
est in the inner life which makes him their common master 
and not his theory of a transcendental ego. See “ Psychol. de 
V Effort,” P. 1889, p. 32. Gertrude C. Bussey, in an article, 
“ Anticipations of Kant’s Refutation of Sensationalism,” Philos. 
R., 1922, XX XI 564, shows:the similarity of Kt. and the Vicar. 


52 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


than Azstractus,” which he notes as the beginning of 
the whole critical philosophy.” 

For Biran, then, the primitive fact of knowledge has 
become the Ego, which does not depend upon any sen- 
sory impression. It is sui generis and discovered by a 
peculiar inner sense. If the wrong sense is employed, 
the Ego will not be found. If other philosophers had 
not been too abstract and analysed the Ego way, or had 
not been too little abstract and had not failed to reach 
the Ego by analysis, they would have agreed with him, 
he says." 


°° Oeuvres Inédites, | 306. He had two enthusiastic Kantians 
among his friends, Stapfer, the Swiss ambassador and Ampere. 
Yet A. wrote him in 1812, after having cited Kt. almost from 
the beginning of their correspondence, “ You have no idea of 
Kt., which the ‘ Hist. des systémes de philos.’ and the work of 
Villers have thought only to disfigure for contrary motives. 
He was mistaken in his conclusions; but how profoundly did 
he note the fundamental facts and the laws of human intelli- 
gence! Blindly you go back in this respect to what MM. de 
Tracy and de Gérando say, who have treated him as Condillac 
treated Descartes and often Locke: twisted his expression to 
make him say the exact opposite of what he did say.” (“ Philos. 
des Deux Ampere,” 2° ed., P. 1870, p. 297) Naville credits 
Stapfer with having introduced Biran to Kt; see his “ M. de 
B., Sa Vie Intime et ses Ecrits,’ RDM, 1851, XI 259. Couailhac 
in his “ M. de B.” P. 1905, p. 291, says that Biran was ignorant 
of Kt. when he constructed his system. His use of a Kantian 
terminology does not prove a fundamental knowledge of Kant’s 
works, for the Berlin Academy’s announcement of its concours 
of 1807, in which he received honorable mention and a medal, 
makes use of such a terminology freely and Biran adopted it 
for himself. The general knowledge of Kant in France is 
discussed below in the text. 

*" “ Pensées,” I4I, 142, 197. 


a 
a 
h, 





THE FORTUNES OF IDEOLOGY 53 


By 1805 Maine de Brian had made the acquaintance 
of Ampere, the physicist, whose correspondence and 
conversations were to prove so great an aid to him in 
formulating his philosophy. Ampere’s metaphysical 
theories were begun, at least to a certain extent, in con- 
versation with his Lyonnais friends, one of whom was 
a M. Roux, a Kantian from Geneva.” The correspon- 
dence between Ampére and Maine de Biran turned 
largely upon our knowledge of the Ego and its impli- 
gations, .— 

Ampere argued that “the sensitive system, insofar 
as there has been no effort, can give only sensations 
or intuitions and the images which they leave after 
them. . . . When there is effort, the consciousness of 
effort or autopsia (i. e., self-consciousness) . . . fur- 
nishes a new element absolutely different from all oth- 
ers, which is perceived in distinction from them but 
in combination with them.” Throughout his letters 
there is a constant insistence upon the fundamentality 
of activity and passivity and on the intuition of the Ego 
in the experience of effort. They agree, said Ampere 
in 1805, on all points but one. Biran did not distinguish 
between the feeling of effort and the muscular sensa- 
tion, whereas for Ampére they were utterly different.” 

It is doubtless because of Ampére that Biran was led 
to emphasize the importance of the Ego in knowledge. 
For Biran came more and more to approach his friend’s 
conceptions as time went on. He soon began to inter- 

8 Deux Ampéres, 197. 


yi. 207. 
“ Td. 200. 


54 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


pret reality in egoistic terms. This seems to have been 
one of the tasks of his unfinished “ Fondements de 
la Psychologie.” It was a task analogous to the 
Kantian deduction of the categories. But whereas 
Kant’s categories are not so much characteristics of the 
Ego as of its knowledge of the world, Biran’s are sim- 
ply the characteristics of the Ego transferred to the 
world. His categories are ‘“‘ substance,” “cause or 
” “unity,” and “ identity.” They are, he thought, 
Locke’s simple ideas of reflection which Locke had 
failed to analyse sufficiently. There are various ways 


force, 


in which they might be derived, one suspects. For in- 
stance, they might be as in Kant—if I read him cor- 
rectly—the subject’s uniform manner of understand- 
ing the world. Or they might be discovered in the 
world as a sort of egoistic projection. Or they might 
be created, as Fichte’s non-Ego was created, for moral 
reasons. There are a number of possible explanations. 
But Biran leaves the question unanswered. 


“We cannot follow in detail,’ he says,” “all the 
divers applications which the human mind makes of 
these two primary and regulative ideas [substance and 
force], transforming them to combine them with phe- 
nomena or images of things without. It is enough for 
us to have shown the true origin which they have in 
the primitive fact of consciousness, which is itself 
only the exercise of a particular sense, that of effort 
and of resistance. It is enough that one should con- 
ceive how these ideas, however much they may be 
removed from their source, may always be brought 
back to it by reflective analysis.” 


“*“Fondements” I 253. 


ae 


THE FORTUNES OF IDEOLOGY 55 


He contented himself with saying that the mind 
discovers its own durable, identical, unified, forceful 
character, intuitively and primitively, and thus author- 
izes itself to make use of such terms as “ substance,” 
“unity,” “identity,” and “cause.” As his editor, 
Naville, remarked, ‘“ He arrives at the redoubtable 
problems raised by Kant and passes over them as if 
he had not seen them.” 

He was not without misgivings, however, for he 
said in his journal (1816), “I have been on a visit 
with my friend Ampére, who is ill. I discussed with 
him the passage from the consciousness of our activity, 
which gives us the first idea of a productive, efficient 
cause, to the belief in external causes. I thought for- 
merly that it was enough to experience a passive im- 
pression of which the Ego had first been the cause, in 
order to relate immediately this passive impression to 
a foreign cause. I see to-day more difficulties in this, 
and I find between the individual feeling of the Ego’s 
causality and the belief or universally necessary notion 
of cause, an abyss which cannot be crossed by the help 
of analysis alone and by analogy or induction, as I 
used to think, From this conception, ‘I am not the 
cause of such a passive modification,’ to this, ‘ There 
is necessarily a cause of all which is done without me,’ 
there is no possible passage by reasoning. One can 
say only that it is natural that we should perceive or 
that we should conceive of things which do not depend 
on the Ego... . We exist as an Ego, or as an indi- 


Ste -200. 
* Oeuvres Inédites, I c. 


56 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


vidual person only insofar as we are causes; it is then 
natural that we should be able to conceive of nothing or 
realise it outside of ourselves except in the same 
manner.” “ 

In the meantime he was working steadily on special 
problems. His group of friends who formed a little 
Philosophical Society, Thurot, Degérando, Cuvier, 
Royer-Collard, Guizot, Ampére, and later Cousin, 
were meeting weekly.” At one time they debated the 
question whether sensations can be experienced with- 
out experiencing the Ego, Biran and Ampére taking 
the affirmative, Royer-Collard and Cuvier the negative.” 
At another time Royer-Collard and Guizot, although 
maintaining that the Ego is both subject and object 
for itself, yet maintain that it is an “ object of belief 
(croyance)”’ “like all substances which we neither 
perceive nor feel by the intermediary of any sense, 
but which we believe to exist really and absolutely ” ; 
Maine de Biran on the other hand insists that this 
notion of absolute reality is a deduction from the 
primitive fact of experience.” 

At the same time these questions begin to grow flat 
and stale and we find Biran, under the stimulus of 
Joseph de Maistre’s “ Essai sur le principe générateur 
et conservateur des sociétés politiques,’ admitting that 
the introspective method, by which he had set such 
store, has led him astray from questions of morals, 

““ Pensées ” 210. 

Uy RAL 


Sed, TED. 
oh PY ed 


THE FORTUNES OF IDEOLOGY 57 


questions which occupied his youth.” ‘“ How shall I 
derive from the principles of philosophy which I have 
followed moral obligation, duty?” he writes in 1815, 
while still working on the “ Fondements ” ” and rejoic- 
ing over Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo. And when 
April weather sends his blood coursing through his 
veins, he who had once considered that ethics was 
closely related to medicine, now writes that his soul 
is tugging at the bodily tether. “Jn interiore homine 
habitat veritas,’ he quotes from St. Augustine, and 
adds, “ These experiences of an inner sense make me 
doubt whether there is a real action of the will on 
ideas or internal perceptions, or if the will, spreading 
itself over the organism, has not for its unique effect 
the repression of this organic influence and thus the 
obstruction of this obstacle to the intuition of the 
spirit.” ” 

This was break enough with the Idéologues who 
believed the will to be nothing other than a kind of 
sensation. But soon we find Maine de Biran acknowl- 
edging the break. 

“About fifteen years ago,’ he wrote in 1816, “ se- 
duced by the commendation of a learned socity, and 
yielding to the instigation and advice of several of its 
members who had the ascendency of age and fame 
upon me, I decided after long hesitation to have 
printed a work on habit, crowned by the class of moral 
and political sciences of the former Institut. This 


work is that of a young man in whom the imgination 
predominates over the reflection, who has almost no 


*8 Td. 190. 
orb, 102. 
Pid. 202: 


58 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


idea of the difficulties and the first questions of the 
science which he is undertaking, who does not yet 
suspect our power of knowledge nor what we never 
know in the science of our own being, who trusts to 
hypothetical explanations of facts inexplicable in their 
nature, or which have no relation to the things imagined 
to explain them. Thinking about this more maturely, 
I have delivered a severe censure upon this premature 
production, and the painful feeling, the kind of shame 
which I attach to it, as to everything which shows 
signs of imperfection, has prevented me from pub- 
lishing since this time three other memoirs crowned 
by learned societies, steadily waiting for greater ma- 
turity and perfection, in a system of ideas: which I 
still feel to be quite incomplete. However, time is 
passing, life is gliding away, and I have arrived at the 
age when man feels that there is no further growth, 
no physical and intellectual progress to hope for, when 
he should hasten to make the best of what he has 
acquired which is soon perhaps to escape him by a 
series of imperceptible wanings. I do not wish to 
begin to die in my own eyes and in those of the intel- 
lectual world without having expounded the particu- 
lar point of view from which I have seen the world, 
and the discoveries which I believe I have made since 
the publication of my essay on habit; I do not wish 
this imperfect work of my youth, without reflection 
and presumptuous in its ignorance, to remain as the 
sole title by which I shall be judged too unfavorably 
by the real metaphysicians who will read me, and, what 
I fear more, too much to the taste of young adepts 
who may be lost on my account in a path whose dan- 
gers and attractions I have recognized too late. It 
is my rigorous duty to point out the rocks against 
which I have stumbled and to indicate the surer route 
which has led me away from them.” 


With the writing of this page in his journal, there 
is the composition of an article on Laromiguiére for 


5 Td. 220. 





THE FORTUNES OF IDEOLOGY 59 


the Archives Littéraires (July 1817), finally issued as 
a brochure, for the review judged it too long and too 
profound.” This again is an open statement of his 
divergence from the ideas which first inspired him. 
In it he attempts to prove that Laromiguiére, in spite 
of his division of the faculties into active and passive, 
has really gone no farther than Condillac himself 
towards the justification of activity. He centers his 
attack on Laromiguiére’s theory of attention, denying 
that it is different from sensation. Real active atten- 
tion is voluntary and free, he maintains, whereas 
Laromiguiére’s can be neither, since attention is a “ re- 
action of the sensibility upon itself’ and freedom and 
volition develop later. 

The emphasis upon the spontaneity of attention is 
characteristic of Biran’s thoughts at this time. His 
years of introspection and his early desire to see how 
far the soul is active, had bred in him a devotion to 
the non-material world typical of the mystic tempera- 
ment. From wishing to see how far the soul is active, 
he had been led to see more and more activity in the 


Tt was reissued in 1829 along with an article by Cousin on 
the same subject, with the following publisher’s announcement. 
“ At a time when the partisans of M. Laromiguiére join with 
the writers of the Quotidienne and the Gazette and with those 
of the materialistic party to attack, God knows with what 
weapons, the new philosophy, the violence of the pupils natur- 
ally attracts the attention to the principles of the master’s 
system.” Hence the publication of the brochure. It is not with- 
out interest to note that the followers of L. were still supposed 
to be the radicals, just as the followers of the older Idéologues 
had been. The “new philosophy” attacked both by them and 
the Catholics is, of course, Eclecticism. 


\ 


60 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


soul, for he was becoming gradually more religious. 
We find him transforming his old metaphysical lan- 
guage into the language of Christian worship. He 
noted as early as 1811 moments in which his soul 
“exercised its faculties”? with no organic obstacle, 
much as one might say that Aristotle imagined the 
soul to do in thinking about thought.” Six years later, 
after criticising the Stoics adversely for declaring that 
the reason can dictate its rules of conduct to the will, 
he decides that the will is conscius et compos sui and 
that its principles of action come from “something 
higher” than the reason.” He has gone another step 
a few months later when he declares not only that the 
human person is essentially dependent though willing, 
but that it is indescribable, ineffable. His friend, Morel- 
let, has asked him, “ What is the Ego?” And Maine 
de Biran, instead of answering, “ That which we feel 
in muscular tension,” writes, “I could not answer. 
One must put himself in the intimate point of view of 
consciousness and having then present this unity 
which judges all phenomena while remaining invaria- 
ble, one sees the Ego; one no longer asks what it is.” ” 
It is perhaps superfluous to invite the reader’s atten- 
tion to the similarity between this passage and famous 
passages from Bergson. 

By the next year Maine de Biran had gone so far 
as to point out what takes the place in his system of 
the mystic way. There are three stages to his journey 

8“ Pensées”” 145. 


oni Nae e Fiy 
(eRe Te 





THE FORTUNES OF IDEOLOGY 61 


of the human soul. In the first, man is nothing for 
himself and everything for his fellows; he thinks only 
of them and of the appearance he will make in their 
eyes. In the second, he separates himself from the 
external world in order to judge it, but he utilizes it 
nevertheless as the end of all his spiritual exercises. 
In the third, however, both the external world and 
self-interest drop out of view. The invisible world, 
God, becomes the object or goal of his thought. The 
two extremes meet. They meet in the lowest form of 
intellectual activity where there is no effort and con- 
sequently no Ego, and in the highest, where their indi- 
vidual’s effort is lost in the person of God. The Ego 
is found between these terms. “ The soul can find in 
itself, or in the thought of God, of the infinite, means 
of strength, of elevation, of peace which remain the 
same even when the machine grows weak and the 
whole organism bends before discouragement, sadness, 
ennui. There is whither one should aspire instead of 
surrendering, as I have done up to the present, to the 
instinctive impressions which make up my whole life, 
even my inner life. I have been giving in to the call of 
these impressions, I have found happiness in them 
alone; others have succeeded them; one must seek 
strength elsewhere. In my best moments until now I 
have been alone with myself. ‘Poor counsel wherein 
God hath no place,’ said Fénelon. The presence of God 
creates the way out of ourselves and that is what we 
need. How reconcile this with my psychological theory 
of the Ego?” 


Pe Lae 202; 


62 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


He didnot reconcile it. The effort which he first 
saw aS a muscular strain developed into a mystical 
longing for something as far from the soul of man 
as the moon from the arms that reach for it. He was 
in the hands of that desire which would not give him 
peace. His voluntarism is but another expression of 
the mal du siécle which no discipline seemed able to 
cure. Maine de Biran hoped to cure it by his mysticism. 
He tried to lead what he called “ the third life,’ which 
was the life directed by the faculty of love, still an 
effort but now an effort to attain repose in God.” In 
his early days he had thought to solve this problem by 
the addition of the life of volition to that of sensation ; 
now he finds this solution inadequate. More and more 
he tries to lead his third life, cultivating “ activity, 
meditation, and prayer,” ~ that he may find the happi- 
ness which he has so long been seeking. At the very 
end of his days, two months before his death, he writes, 
“ Miserere met, Domine, quoniam infirmus sum... . 
Lumbi mei impleti sunt illusionibus et non est sanitas 
in carne mea. Wisdom, true strength, consists in walk- 
ing in the presence of God, in feeling oneself sustained 
by Him; otherwise, vae soli!” ™ 

That was the end of Maine de Biran’s reflections. 
He had arrived at a goal which seemed antipodal to 
the point from which he had started. But he had ar- 
rived there by the consistent driving forward towards 
the happiness which his busy life had not been able to ' 

Td. 390, 411. 


Id. 414. 
° Td. 220. 





THE FORTUNES OF IDEOLOGY 63 


give him. For him philosophy was a practical means of 
regulating life, not of describing certain facts ; he knew 
at the outset of his thinking the kind of return which 
he asked of it—spiritual repose. The problem was to 
find rational justification for it. 

It was not his mysticism which was adopted by later 
thinkers. For one reason or another they did not go so 
far. Yet there is ground for legitimate suspicion that 
a voluntarism, like any other anti-rationalistic theory, 
ought to lead one near to mysticism if not directly to it. 
Ravaisson perhaps of all his readers came the closest 
to the same result. But even he stopped short of it. 

It was on the contrary Maine de Biran’s method of 
introspective analysis, in spite of his own confession of 
its impotency, which was of immediate consequence in 
French philosophies. In later days his emphasis upon 
the will became the more fertile doctrine. Yet these 
are both but fragments of the Biranian philosophy and 
are not, strictly speaking, representative of the whole. 
For his philosophy is not a body of propositions, a 
system, like Spinoza’s. It is rather a drama. It is more 
to be compared to a Chinese painted scroll whose signifi- 
cance emerges as it is unwound, than to a simple 
wall picture of the West, which can be appreciated as a 
whole in a relatively small space of time. The meaning 
of the details in Biranism can be most truly interpreted 
only in relation to the rest of his life. They mean much 
more to him as a person than they do to the other details . 
in his reflections. 


& 


64 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


The voluntarism of Maine de Biran is not like that 
of Nietzsche, the glorification of creative power. It 
may be true, as Picavet says in his article in the Grande 
Encyclopédie, that Biran was a voluntarist because he 
was physically a weakling. But his will is the will 
which struggles against the brute creation with no 
necessary hope of accomplishing anything beyond its 
own negation. 

His influence made itself felt at first through his 
conversation in the Philosophical Society, for his work 
was not published to any great extent until Cousin’s 
edition of 1841. His friends were fairly enthusiastic 
over him: Ancillon called him ‘“ notre maitre a tous ” ;” 
Cousin called him the most original of French think- 
ers.” Jules Simon found him half responsible for 
Royer-Collard’s teaching,” although a reading of the 
“ Pensées ” would lead one to think that they seldom 
agreed in conversation. Sainte-Beuve points out how 
a Catholic, Father Gratry, the Positivists, the Eclectics, 
and Spiritualists like Ravaisson and Lachelier—whom 
he quotes to this effect—derive or could derive their 
philosophies from Maine de Biran. 

“ Pauvre Maine de Biran,” he writes,” “ toujours en 
quete de son point d'appur quwil ne put jamais recontrer 
m atteindre, le voila devenu, sans qwil sen sott douteé, 
un guide en matiere de certitude, un fondateur! ” 


© Oeuvres Inédites, I lil. 

* Oeuvres Philos. lV vi; “ Premiers Essais,” 3° ed., P. 1855, 
Pek: . 

? RDM, 1841, IV 640. 

* Causeries du Lundi, XIII 323 n. 


a eS ee 


THE FORTUNES OF IDEOLOGY 65 


IV 


Ideology, if it led to little in philosophy, had two 
interesting effects upon literature. The doctrine of the 
analysis of sensations intensified the interest of writers 
_ in self-scrutiny and undoubtedly molded the genius of 
Stendhal; the physiological doctrines of Cabanis in- 
spired a new genre of social satire. 

Henri Beyle was educated in the ideological Ecole 
Centrale of Grenoble. His teacher of literature was an 
Idéologue, basing his work, the analysis of the art of 
thinking, on the ideas of Locke, Condillac, and Helvé- 
tius.” His teacher of logic carried out the program of 
“general grammar” prescribed by the preface of De- 
stutt’s “Traité,” using the text-books of Lancelot, 
Bauzée, Dumarsis, Condillac, and Harris’s ‘‘ Hermes.” * 
How orthodox was his teaching can be seen in his re- 
marks on the distribution of prizes of the Year VI. 
“ General grammar,” he said, “is the reasoned science 
of the general and immutable principles of language 

. . its study is founded upon that of logic, or rather 
it is itself true logic. . . . The acuteness which this 
study communicates to the mind, the habit it gives of 
combining and comparing ideas, binds it intimately to 
mathematics and by it to all the exact sciences.” 

Beyle’s interest in Ideology grew. In 1802 he sent 
to his mistress a copy of Condillac’s “ Logic” and he 
wrote in his “ Life of Henri Brulard”’ that about this 


“See Arbelet; “La Jeunesse de Stendhal,” P. 1919, I 264. 
Td, 281. 

* Td, 282. 

* Id. 283. N. 1. 


6 


66 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


time he wished to become a philosopher. “I read a 
great deal . . . the tragedies of Alfieri, forcing my- 
self to find pleasure in them. I revered Cabanis, Tracy, 
J-B. Say. I often used to read Cabanis whose vague 
style cut me to the quick (me désolait).”“ He found 
in Cabanis’s account of the “melancholy tempera- 
ment” a portrait of himself.” He found in Destutt 
de Tracy a guide to right thinking,” and regretted that 
he was never successful in pleasing either him or Mad- 
eleine Pasta, about both of whom he was enthusiastic.” 
He hated the “empty ideas of Plato, Kant, and their 
1” ” and their “phrases louches”’ almost as much 


99 % 


schoo 
as he hated Chateaubriand, “ that king of egoists. 

M. Delacroix in his “ Psychologie de Stendhal” has 
already shown with what fidelity Beyle utilized the 
teachings of Cabanis in his psychology of art, love, 
and of “human temperaments.” Thus he based the 
experience of musical beauty on the tension of nerves 
in the ear.“ ‘“‘ The so touching virtue preached by the 
so beautiful phrases of the ‘Génie du Christianisme ’ 
is reduced to not eating truffles from fear of having 
cramps in the stomach.” But it goes without saying 
that he does more than slavishly reproduce the ideas 


*® “ Tfenri Brulard,” I 12. 

© Td. T' 197; 0374 200. 

” Id. I 239; II 60. 

“Td Theanb7, 

2“ Promenades dans Rome,” P. 1829, I 241. 
8H BL”) TOs cf pp. 7: 242, oorras: 

™ Delacroix; p. 188. 

*“Del Amour,” P. 1822, II 154. 


oe 


THE FORTUNES OF IDEOLOGY 67 


of his masters in his novels and essays. Their influence 
on him is of a more general nature. 

He might be said, that is, to belong to the ideological 
‘tradition though he is more than an Idéologue. He 
employs, for instance, psychological analysis. But psy- 
chological analysis is found in French literature at least 
as early as Montaigne and has continued through Mar- 
cel Proust to our contemporaries. What differentiates 
Beyle’s analysis from that of his predecessors is the 
theory of knowledge which is its foundation. His pecu- 
liar gift of selecting the correct sensation at the most 
telling moment is nothing short of amazing and ac- 
counts in large measure for the irony of many of his 
passages. Montaigne, after all, was interested in his 
own reactions to the world. Beyle is interested in writ- 
ing a novel. One would be very rash to say that he 
wrote the “ Chartreuse de Parme” for other than lit- 
erary reasons, for he had none of the pretensions of a 
Zola. His use of ideology is directed towards a literary 
end. It is doubtful whether he would even have main- 
tained the analytic pose had he not found it amusing. 
He said himself often enough that he was writing not 
for his own day but for 1935. Ideology for him was 
a study in disillusion showing him of what clay our 
loftiest notions are built and giving him that crackling 
style and mild contempt for his more romantic char- 
acters which are exactly the literary gifts which we 
most admire to-day. 

He joins to his analysis of sensation an admiration 
for activity which carries him beyond Ideology. Beyle’s 
characters do not languish in mountain retreats nor 


68 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


meditate beside flowing waters. They are forever dash- 
ing about energetically, as often as not to no end. It is 
as if their author felt that the lowliness of sensations 
could be balanced by loftiness of will. At any rate his 
enthusiasm for Napoleon and his disgust for himself 
are perhaps expressed in the youthful Julien and 
Fabrice whose age is no obstacle to their ambitions. 
The comedy hidden in Destutt’s theory of resistance 
and effort is here brought into the open. The author 
of the “Chartreuse de Parme” is not blinded by the 
dust of battlefields and broad highways. He loves the 
action that takes place upon them, but he can evaluate it. 

The fundamental paradox in Destutt’s theory is that 
we learn of the existence of the external world by 
the resistance it gives our efforts to understand it. 
A paradox may be either sublime or grotesque. Beyle 
was great enough to accentuate the grotesqueness of 
the situation. He not only constructed his two major 
novels with a fundamental contrast, but developed in- 
dividual scenes after the same pattern. One could 
hardly maintain that either Julien or Fabrice were in- 
herently interesting people. They belong to the family 
of heroes whose English branch descends from Ernest 
Pontifex, if not from Tom Jones. Unfortunately for 
the interest of this book, we cannot trace their progeny 
in France. 

Almost contemporaneous with “De lAmour” 
(1822), whose author called it “un livre d’idéologie,” 
appeared Brillat-Savarin’s ‘“ Physiologie du Gout” 
(1825), which is about as physiological as “De 
Amour” is ideological. Its author, surely one of 


? 








i 
: 
tf 
: 
i 
* 
i 
b 
"i 


oe 


THE FORTUNES OF IDEOLOGY 69 


the most accomplished writers of any country, prides 
himself on his knowledge of medicine and physiology. 
His physiological notions came from Cabanis’s dis- 
ciple, Richerand. It would be pitiable to maintain that 
his famous aphorisms, “Tell me what you eat and I 
will tell you what you are,” and “ The discovery of a 
new dish does more for the happiness of humankind 
than the discovery of a star,” are based on any deep 
conviction of a metaphysical nature. Yet they do re- 
veal the same general attitude towards the world as 
that of the man who voiced the equally exaggerated 
opinion, that “the brain in a way digests impressions ; 
it secretes thought organically.” ™ 

The “ Physiologie du Gotit” is the beginning of a 
long series of “ Physiologies,’ including Balzac’s 
“ Physiologie du Mariage ” (1828), which was a direct 
imitation, and Sophie Gay’s “ Physiologie du Ridi- 
cule.” The series broadened out in the ’40’s with 
twenty or thirty physiologies, of the butcher, the baker, 
the candlestick-maker. They were the type of litera- 
ture foreshadowed in La Bruyere’s “ Characters,” ex- 
cept that where La Bruyére’s types were psychological, 
the types of the physiologies were economic, a differ- 
ence between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries 
which is not insignificant. 


*® Cabanis; “ Rapports,” p. 123. 


CHAPTER THREE 
THE NEo-CHRISTIANS 


During the Revolution, while the Idéologues were 
elaborating their theories in France and developing 
their practical consequences, the partisans of the old 
régime sat in a ring about their mother country awaiting 
their return to power and justifying it in their books. 
In England, in Holland, in Switzerland, in Germany, 
they plotted and schemed and allied themselves with 
the enemies of France until they saw how useless such 
action was. Then they began to put their ideas into 
writing. In 1796 and 1797 arose a new group of literary 
productions which were to do for the counter-revolution 
what the Philosophers had done for the Revolution.* 

In Hamburg Mallet du Pan produced his “ Corre- 
spondance politique,” and Rivarol, the Abbé de Pradt 
and others collaborated on the Spectateur du Nord. At 
Neuchatel appeared Joseph de Maistre’s “ Considéra- 
tions sur la Révolution Francaise,’ not the work of a 
Frenchman, but very influential in the counter-revolu- 
tion. At Constance appeared the Vicomte de Bonald’s 
“Théorie du Pouvoir,” a book which Sainte-Beuve says 
had very little effect at the moment of its appearance, 
although its author went so far as to beseech Sié€yés to 


*See Sainte-Beuve; “Causeries du Lundi” (hereafter CL) 
IV 4209. 
70 





THE NEO-CHRISTIANS 71 


give it publicity by denouncing it if necessary.’ The 
whole edition was sent to Paris and there seized by order 
of the Directory,’ but the book was well known among 
the group to whom it was addressed and helped establish 
its author as one of the leaders of the Catholic royalists. 
There is a legitimate suspicion that all these productions 
were by no means the spontaneous outbursts of the 
émigrés. Louis XVIII had a finger on events and a firm 
finger. One has only to read the correspondence be- 
tween him and Joseph de Maistre to see how in at least 
one instance he directly inspired what was written.” 

But Bonald was to win the reputation not so much of 
a political scientist as of a philosopher.’ His bitter acrid 
style was not such as could win the hearts of his fellows, 
as Lamennais’s could, nor dazzle his opponents, as Mai- 
stre’s could. But he did have the power of presenting 
his ideas systematically and of giving them the appear- 
ance of fact. 

Philosophically he feels at one with the great 
Catholics of the Middle Ages. Like them he believes 
that that which is unified and permanent is that which 
alone commands respect. The multiple and the chang- 
ing are not mere appearance; they are evil.° This point 

*Id. IV 430 n. 1. This is accepted as true by Moulinié; “ De 
Bonald,” P. 1915, p. 29 n. 4. 

® Not. Biographique, in Bonald; OC, P. 1864, I viii. 

4See Ernest Daudet; “Lettres Inédites de Joseph de 
Maistre,’ RDM 10907, p. 604. See esp. p. 607. 

*Bonald; OC I xlvii. 


*Cf. the Abbé Lantaigne in Anatole France’s “L’Orme du 
Mail,” ch. XIII. This as a philosophic formula goes back at 


72 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


of view precedes his exposition ; it is a postulate which 
he lays down before any argument is begun. But having 
been laid down, it leaves merely the task of unfolding 
its implication and articulating its hidden meaning. 

The postulate is essentially that of Dante in his “ De 
Monarchia.” But whereas Dante could afford to be 
generous to the inventor of metaphysics, Bonald agrees 
with Degérando, that the only art which he had neg- 
lected to teach was that of discovering the truth.’ 
Bonald had no need of going behind Church tradition 
to authorize his eleatic conception of power. And as 
he hated to do so, he did not. 

If the highest being in the world is one and if those 
powers which make for unity alone make for righteous- 
ness, obviously the real business of the lover of wisdom 
is to combat both the ideas and the practices of believers 
in multiplicity. The One alone is good. Hence to reach 
truth we must synthesize, not analyse as the Idéologues 
had preached. We must study the Whole, not the parts ; 
society, not the individual ; the absolute, not the relative.” 
“Truth,” says Bonald, “ like men and like society, is 
a seed which grows in the succession of ages and of 
men, always ancient in its beginning, always new in its 


sequential developments.” " Because men have disre- 


least to the Pythagoreans. See the Nichomachean Ethics, Bk. II 
ch. vi, éoOAol pév yap dmAds wayTodamas 5é Kaxcl, 

*“ Recherches Philosophiques,”’ OC III 8. 

*Cf. “De la Politique et de la Morale,” OC III 794. 

*“ Legislation Primitive,” OC I 1199. 


ope 


q v 
tt 
ag 
ig 
ro 
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- 

*, 





THE NEO-CHRISTIANS 73 


garded this fundamental of philosophy, they have 
slipped into the errors of individualism, materialism, 
atheism. 

Truth in the beginning is ancient and in the end is 
new because it is eternal. It was revealed at a single 
moment by God, not through continual inspiration, as 
Bonald feels that Protestants believe, but in the sense 
that definitely and historically He has revealed Himself 
to man and that the tradition of that revelation has been 
handed down in the faith of the synagogue and church.” 
It would seem at first sight as if this contradicted the 
thesis that truth develops like a seed. And indeed by 
emphasizing the development of truth much trouble 
ensued for some of Bonald’s readers. Truth develops 
like a seed, but to a scholastic mind—as to an Aristo- 
telian mind—a seed can develop in only one way, a 
way determined by the final cause which is the plant. 
Thus truth could both develop and be eternal. 

It is worth noting the striking similarity between the 
doctrines of Hegel and of Bonald.” Both were devel- 

10“ Princ. Const.,” OC I 17; cf. “ Enchiridion” 1623. 

1 See Ed. Quinet; “De 1a Philosophie et de la Révolution,” 
RDM 1831, IV 468. Bonald himself objects to German philoso- 
phy which he calls German “rationalism.” It errs, he thinks, 
as French “empiricism” errs, in “wishing to accomplish 
everything with man alone. The one wishes to compose every- 
thing, even the physical world, out of the reason; the other 
to compose everything, even the moral world, out of sensations. 
That is, under other names, idealism and materialism. But it 
must be noted that the German, with his rationalism, is more 


dependent than the Frenchman on feelings and desires.” 
(“ Rech. Philos.” OC III 25 n. 2). 


74 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


oped contemporaneously by men interested in not dis- 
similar societies. Both were defences of monarchy and 
both firmly asserted that the individual is real only as 
a member of society. Both saw, moreover, a social 
meaning to truth, which followers of Hegel have made 
so much of, and its eternality. The really basic differ- 
ence between the two men is Hegel’s Protestant and 
Bonald’s Catholic background. With the Protestant 
bent towards self-scrutiny in the search for truth, made 
philosophical, if you choose, by Kant, Hegel was able to 
affirm literally the participation, not to say absorption, 
of every individual in God. To have struck this mystic 
note would have been impossible for Bonald whose 
religion needed a God above the world. The tradition 
which made a kind of mysticism natural for the Prot- 
estant made it an abomination for the Catholic. It 
would have been strange had Bonald done otherwise. 

The barriers between men break down, in Bonald’s 
opinion, when we understand that they exist as social 
creatures. They are then seen to be simply the elements 
in a greater whole which, in a manner made familiar 
to us by the Hegelians, gives them their meaning. For 
that reason Bonald is careful to point out that the life 
of man in society is neither the result of superimposed 
force nor of a social contract, as his eighteenth century 
opponents had taught. It is implied in the laws of 
nature ;™ it is necessary because it is natural. The life 
of man becomes what society makes it; for society 
like a mother receives the germs of talent from nature; 


* brine, Const.” OC a7. 





THE NEO-CHRISTIANS 75 


she develops them, making her members artists, poets, 
orators, moralists, scientists.” This is not meant as 
a metaphor. Just as Hegel speaks literally of the 
Oriental, the Classical, the Germanic societies as 
literal expressions of the freedom of the despot, of the 
demos, and of Man, respectively, so Bonald speaks of 
Jewish, Pagan, and Christian societies as literal expres- 
sions of pure theocracy, pure humanism, and the proper 
balance between the two.” But whereas Hegel held that 
this was a logical development, Bonald thought that the 
difference was attributable to the wickedness of the 
Pagans and the Jews and that there had been no devel- 
opment whatsoever. In fact Bonald is much more 
Augustinian in his philosophy of history than his Ger- 
man contemporary, and, as far as we have seen, reads 
into its processes no law. Change for him is real, but 
it is avoidable and is always bad. In the eternal all 
change disappears and all ages are but one. Since the 
present always conserves some of the past, as he says 
in a startling half-anticipation of Bergson,” one never 
really passes out of any epoch into any other. 

* “ Reflect. sur l’hist. de J-B. Bossuet,” OC III 933. 

* “Legis. Prim.,” OC I 1085. Cf. the three ages of power in 
the hist. of Fr., the personal, the public, and the popular. 
(“De la Maniére d’écrire Vhist.’ OC III 1062.) Bonald’s 
friend, Maistre, duplicates curiously enough Hegel’s notion 
of a necessary evolution through thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, 
in his “Du Pape,” liv. IV, ch. iii, where he says that the 
schismatic churches are farther from the truth than the 
Protestant, “ for the latter have completed their circle of error, 
whereas the others have merely begun it and must consequently 
pass through Calvinism, perhaps even socinianism, before 


getting back to unity.” 
* “Te la maniére d’écrire l’hist.,” OC III 1063. 


76 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


As the personality of the individual melts into that of 
society, a process of perfection and not of elimination, 
so the very ideas by which man thinks are realized in 
that common social thought which is language. This 
means on the one hand that there is no truth within the 
individual, either in mystic contemplation or in Kantian 
self-analysis ; and on the other hand it means that the 
opposition of one man to the opinion of society will be 
interpreted not as lofty devotion to insight, but as stub- 
born pigheadedness. Ideas are without the individual, 
much as the empiricists had' said, but they are not with- 
out society. Society is a being in which ideas are innate 
for the individual to discover. They are interwoven into 
the very texture of society and social experience reveals 
them to man when he lives according to the laws of 
nature.” | 

They are revealed to man in his thinking, and since 
thinking is impossible without language and language 
without thought, Bonald treats ideas much as most 
people would treat words. It is of course the meaning 
of words and not the sound of which he is thinking. 
Sounds for him, it must be said to his credit, are no 
more ideas than images are. Thinking, according to his 
psychology, is internal speech. 

From this follows the celebrated theory of the origin 
of language, which at the time had profound political 
and religious consequences.” Briefly, since we cannot 
think without words, we could not have thought of a 


*“Tégis, Prim.,” OC I 1066. 
* Id. I 1063. 





THE NEO-CHRISTIANS a7 


language before having one. Hence we could not have 
invented it.” And since the expressions of one faculty 
of the soul cannot be employed’ by another, language 
could not have been evolved from gestures or in articu- 
late cries, as the Idéologues believed.” The thinking soul 
imagines, understands, and feels. But to express an 
image is to make a drawing or a gesture, to reproduce 
one’s experience for the benefit of someone else; to 
express a feeling—by which Bonald means pleasure or 
pain—is to laugh or weep, to shudder, to recoil, and the 
like; to express an idea is to write or speak a word. 
Thus one speaks his thoughts, says Bonald, but speaks 
of his images and feelings. One cannot laugh an idea 
nor draw an emotion, although laughter and drawing 
may excite ideas or emotions and may be excited by 
them.” Contrariwise, animals, who have no intelligence, 
do not speak, but they have images and feelings for 
they give vent to cries and make gestures.” Language 
then could not have devolped from the use of the 
faculties other than thought, nor, since it is required for 
invention, could it have been invented. 

It is interesting to observe, if one may digress for 
a moment, that for Bonald only those entities are 
mental which are the private property of individuals, 
which are a function so to speak of human nature. 
To him the color red could never be mental, though it 
might affect our minds through our bodies as clear or 

* “Rech. Philos.” OC III 64. 

ph 372. 


*° Id. 174. 
41 Sur la pensée de I’homme,” OC III 426. 


78 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


muddy, light or dark, agreeable or disagreeable. It is 
important not to forget this in reading Bonald, for it is 
what makes him so pre-eminently a scholastic and an op- 
ponent of Locke and his disciples, the Condillacists. By 
focussing psychology upon the effect of the outside 
world on the individual, they easily focussed the imagi- 
nation of the public upon the same thing, and it was 
no long road from sensationalism to complete self- 
interest. If all was to be sensation, as the hated Idéo- 
_logues had seemed to say (in their own words “ feel- 
ings”) the noble world of ideals was to be given up 
for that of the inner life, and even the inner life was 
to degenerate into a conglomeration of vulgar colors, 
sounds, tastes, and the like. This consequence was seen 
by Bonald and expresses itself throughout his works. 
In speaking, for instance, of Mme. de Staél, apologist 
of the pre-consular Revolution and of the Idéologues, 
he says, ‘‘ Brought up in the opulence and purple of the 
Cabinet, given over to the strongest deductions which 
high society has for women of intelligence, she is much 
too disposed to see only the brilliant side of men and 
things, to find happiness in splendor, life in agitation, 
reason in the stutccesses of the wit.”™ This was, he 
continues, the outcome of her psychology, individualistic 
and Protestant. 

To return to the theory of language, Bonald was glad 
to find a mystery at the origin of that which alone could 
give mankind personality and value. For if it is a mys- 
tery, there can be but one explanation of it, the super- 


4“ Observations sur l’ouvrage de Mme. de Staél,” OC II 608. 





THE NEO-CHRISTIANS 79 


natural one. To explain supernaturally seems much less 
mysterious to some people than to admit one’s igno- 
rance, and Bonald relieved his strain by attributing the 
origin of what he could not explain to the Omnipotent. 
Language, which with thought forms twin stars revolv- 
ing one about the other, is created by God, breathed 
into the first man as a revelation, and passed on by him 
to his descendants. 

If knowledge in its deepest aspects was directly and 
entirely revealed to the first man, is it not in the tradi- 
tions of the race that all truth is to be found?* That 
seemed a consequence and the contemporaries and suc- 
cessors of Bonald were not slow to make that conse- 
quence explicit. Accordingly when Lamennais began 
to formulate his doctrine, as we shall see later, it seemed 
at the time as if he had his strongest support in Bonald. 
But the theory cf Traditionalism was held to deprive 
men of innate ideas and the Church needed innate ideas. 
Bonald lived to see Lamennais condemned by Gregory 
XVI for his Indifferentism and twenty-one years later 
Pius IX condemned Bonetty for Traditionalism.” 
What Bonald’s reaction to this last event would have 
been we do not know, but his son indignantly repudiated 
the idea of his father’s having founded a heresy.” He 
admitted that his father’s language may have seemed 

* Cf. Bonald’s brief statement of the tenets of what Damiron 
called “the theological school” of philos. in “ Princ. Const.” 
OC 1 6. 

* “Enchiridion” 1613; 1649. 


75“ Mf. de Bonald et le Traditionnalisme,” Corresp. XXXV 
288. 


80 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


to lend support to the doctrine, but said that in reality 
it did not. For he believed that man was more than 
un etre enseigné; in his soul were written the law of 
God and moral truths, which were awaiting language 
to make them intelligible. And indeed in the “ Recher- 
ches Philosophiques ” (OC III 24), he seemed to say 
that they were innate within the individual and not 
merely in society as he had said elsewhere. But he had 
also said that deaf mutes do not have ideas until they 
can write ; he believed than an idea unspoken was hardly 
an idea. His son had apparently little effect in con- 
vincing people of his father’s orthodoxy, for two years 
after his article appeared, Charles de Rémusat wrote 
another in which he took for granted what the young 
nobleman had tried to disprove.” 

Bonald will always stand with Maistre as joint leader 
of the Catholic and monarchical counter-revolution. The 
way had been prepared, however, by the restoration of 
the cult, due in large measure to the work of Camille 
Jordan, Royer-Collard, and perhaps Portalis;” by the 
Concordat and its consequences. But Bonald more than 
anyone else rationalized authority and national solidar- 
ity, thus pretty effectively checking the republicans and 
other political individualists. Napoleon appreciated his 
value and made advances to him which he made to no 
one else. As First Consul he had offered to reprint the 
“Théorie du Pouvoir” at his own expense;~ as 

*° “Tu Traditionalisme,’ RDM IX 51. 

* Tony Bouillet; “Le Rétablissement du Culte Catholique 


en 1797,” Corresp. 1879, LXXX. 
*® Moulinié; “De Bonald” 30. 





THE NEO-CHRISTIANS SI 


Emperor he had protected him from the zeal of Fouché ; 
withdrew him from surveillance ; offered him the editor- 
ship of the Journal de Empire (formerly the Journal 
des Débats) and a position on the Council of the Univer- 
sity.” But Bonald refused all these offers. Strange as 
it may seem, he remained in the Emperor’s good graces. 
When Daunou, the Idéologue, refused a position as 
Councillor of State, the Emperor thundered, ‘“ Don’t 
think that it’s because I love you that I offer you this 
place; it’s because I need you.”® But when Lucien 
Bonaparte requested Bonald’s empty place for one 
of his friends, the Emperor replied through Fontanes, 
“This place is reserved for M. de Bonald.”” Bon- 
ald, after waiting two years longer for the return 
of Louis XVIII, gave in and took his seat, thus 
earning for himself an undeserved place in the 
“Dictionnaire des Girouettes.” Daunou, an organ- 
izer and an analyst, might be necessary, but he was 
inherently an opponent; his whole philosophy was 
radically hostile to the imperial régime. Bonald’s on 
_ the contrary, was philosophic imperialism, and Na- 
poleon knew that to have him as a friend was to have 
an official apologist, and one of high order who be- 
lieved in what he excused. 

Faguet called Bonald the last of the Scholastics.” He 


pangs. AO n.3, 37, 

* Picavet; “Idéologues,” 403 n. 1. 

* Bonald; OC I xiv, Not. Biographique. 

*“ Politiques et Moralistes du 19° Siécle,” P. 1890, ler sér., 
p. 70. B. is not Aristotelian however. We have seen what he 
thought of Aristotle, who “lowered the human mind by re- 
jecting the theory of innate ideas.” (‘“ Rech. Philos.” OC III 


7 


82 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


was obviously not the last, but he was—as we have said 
above—a scholastic in temperament and purpose. Like 
Saint Thomas, he could hold that members of a state 
make up one body. and the whole community one man.” 
Though he never went to the extremes of Nicholas of 
Cusa, who made a careful study of the anatomy of the 
corpus mysticum in which the papacy is the soul in the 
brain, the patriarchate the soul in the ears and eyes, and 
so on, nevertheless he could have taken over such meta- 
phors without doing violence to his system. Indeed, he 
probably would have taken them over if he had read 
widely enough to know them.” He would have found 
in medieval political scientists traditional justification 
of the Emperor’s catechism, for had it not been said 
by Baldus de Ubaldeis, ““ The Emperor is lord of the 


7.) Plato, he felt, though very imperfect in matters of political 
science, was “endowed with the sublimest qualities of the 
mind and the happiest gifts of the imagination.” (Jb.) It is to 
the neo-Platonic tradition that B.’s scholasticism is allied. To 
him there is no time in God’s world; all proceeds by an emana- 
tion from above, sovereignty, power, the values, life itself. He 
objects to the phrase, ‘“ Man is a rational animal,” and substi- 
tutes for it, “ Man is an intelligence served by organs.” This 
intelligence is ultimately distinct from its organs. To Aristotle 
the absolute gulf between the soul and the body had not oc- 
curred, and, although the soul was that for which the body 
existed, it was all the more closely connected with the body on 
that account. 

8 Summ. Theol.” II i q. 81, a. 1. 

*4 Nowadays scholarship has made wide reading unnecessary. 
One has only to peruse the notes to Gierke’s “ Political Theories 
of the Middle Age,” tr. by F. W. Maitland, Camb. 1913. See 


p. 24. 





THE NEO-CHRISTIANS 83 


whole world and God on earth,” and by Dietrich of 
Niem, “ To the Emperor is due devotion as to the pres- 
ent and corporeal God”? 

Even the more modern parts of Bonald’s philosophy 
are not utterly original. His theory of language, the 
pride of his bosom, was anticipated.” His hated Rous- 
seau had expressed before him the formula, “ Speech 
seems to have been very necessary to have established 
the usage of speech;” ” Condillac, in a passage which 
Rousseau’s formula was invented to refute, had linked 
thought and speech together.* As for the divine origin 
of language, that was almost a commonplace.” 


*® Jd. n. 122 to p. 141. 

* Cf. Moulinié, 217-226; Damiron; “ Essai sur V’hist. de la 
philos. en Fr. au dix-neuviéme siécle,” P. 1828, p. 161. Rémusat, 
in his article on traditionalism mentioned in the text (p. 50), 
thinks that Vico and Herder also had a hand in it. 

Saint-Martin, curiously enough, from Rousseau’s premise 
deduced a non-theological theory. In his famous debate in the 
Ecole Normale with Garat and in the memoir which he sub- 
mitted to the concours on the influence of signs, he elaborated 
R.’s idea. He had recourse to a theory that all animals have a 
gift of expression and that man’s is speech. As man has de- 
veloped, his means of expression has developed. And it will 
continue to develop until it has reached the point where ab- 
stractions and definitions, invariable and regular constructions, 
will be substituted for the direct impressions made upon us 
by the vivid world of nature. Then development will be at an 
end. See Franck; “La Philos. Mystique,” ch. iv. 

**“ TDiscours sur l’inégalité,’” OC Lyon 17096, I 82, esp. p. 88. 

 Lopic, PF. An VI, p. 125. 

See Court de Gebelin; “ Monde Primitif,’ P. 1774, II 
xiii;. III 66; Sicard; “ Cours d’Instruction d’un Sourd-Muet de 
Naissance,” P. An VIII, xviii; Hugh Blair in the sixth lecture 
of his “ Lectures on Rhetoric,” tr. into French in 1783; Harris 


84 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


Bonald’s philosophy is the expression of what is pre- 
supposed by Catholic monarchism. From the doctrines 
suggested above, it is easy to see how an absolute 
monarchy might be defended or even deduced. As a 
matter of fact, these doctrines in time come after the 
ideas they imply and stand, as it were, for formulas 
abstracted from practice. It is not difficult in a history 
to rearrange them, so that it looks as if they were 
Bonald’s starting point. But the contrary is the truth. 
His political theory preceded his epistemology and it 
was his political theory which was most seductive to his 
friends. It was the platform of their class. All his life 
he had lived in a royalist atmosphere. His soul was so 
inextricably mingled with the soul of the Bourbons 


that he was unable to tear it loose even to serve their — 


equal in absolutism. There could be no inner struggle 
for him to make his inclinations fit his ideas ; his incli- 
nations were his ideas.” 


of popes and Catholic tradition, had no difficulty in assigning 


a divine-origin to language. See “ Allemagne,” Pt. III ch. vii. © 


in his “‘ Hermes” II 360. Even Mme. De Staél, surely no friend ~ 


“The usual points of interest about Bonald, his passion for — 


triads, his views on divorce and free speech, his severity 


towards wrong-doers, his revival of the idea of trial by God— — 


_ not very far from that of Ordeal, are out of place here. They 
can be found in almost every other treatment of Bonald. See 
Moulinié’s excellent study; Mr. Harold Laski’s essay in his 
“ Authority in the Modern State, “ New Haven, 1919, which 


seems to me to follow Moulinié fairly closely; Faguet’s 4 
résumé and appraisal of the whole system in the “ Politiques et 
Moralistes.” Jules Simon in “ Philosophes et Publicistes Con- 


temporains,’ RDM 1841, XXVII 500 writes feelingly against 


him, though he appreciates the nobility of his character. See ~ 


esp. p. 540. 





THE NEO-CHRISTIANS 85 


One can say the same of Joseph de Maistre. In his 
youth a frequenter of the Lyonnais mystics, the Grand 
Orator of a lodge of Masons,” he became a rigid Catho- 
lic after the Revolution. Like Bonald he wrote his first 
book in exile, for he fled from the revolutionary armies 
when they entered his native Savoy. These two men, 
who recognized the kinship of their ideas, scarcely 
wrote a line in contradiction of each other. They took 
up their pens at the same time to rationalize their hatred 
of revolution—which was the first appearance of evil 
in their theology—and to prophesy the return of the 
Bourbons. 

Like Bonald, Joseph de Maistre shrinks from the 
temporal into the eternal, from the mutable into the 
unchanging. His philosophy is again that passionate 
eleatic cry which would have warmed the heart of the 
vehement Xenophanes. He makes no claim, indeed, that 
change does not exist; but he is sure that it is evil. 
Change is a departure from the original perfect pattern ; 
the Greeks were right in putting the Golden Age at the 
beginning of history ; the rest is degeneration.” ‘“ Man,” 
he says, “is subject to time and nevertheless is by 
nature a stanger to time. He is at the point where the 
idea even of eternal happiness, linked with that of time, 
“tires him and frightens him.” Again, prophets who 
“enjoy the privilege of emerging from time” see the 
truth, and dreams, in which we have no idea of time 
“Cogordan; “Joseph de Maistre,” P. 1894, p. 17. 
*“Soirées de Saint-Petersbourg,” oth ed., Lyon et P., 1867, 


[ 98 and 70. 
me airees, Ll 273. 


86 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


(Maistre loquitur), are the occasion for revealing to 
us divine communications.” 

In so saying, Maistre is at one with the Christian 
philosophers of history from Saint Augustine to Bos- 
suet, To the Christian time, with its attendant change, 
can never be productive of good. The good is a judg- 
ment pronounced at the dawn of the world on the 
world as then existing. Change was brought about in 
human times by man’s deliberate disobedience. Had 
Adam not eaten of the forbidden fruit, man would have 
lived in a state of permanent perfection, which it would 
have been folly to modify. Life was then the Platonic 
idea of life, realized here below, just as man was the 
image of God. Eden was the terrestrial Paradise, the 
Kingdom of God on earth. That Kingdom was beyond 
the reach of time and change. It is the return to it which 
animates man’s moral life. 

It is significant that the introduction into the ae 
of evil should have come through disobedience. Bonald 
and Maistre both see in it the source of everything 
which is bad. It is better to obey a wicked order than 
to revolt, they maintain. For even a wicked order is 
an expression of authority and authority is divine. 
Cruel as this may seem and be, it is quite in accord 
with the grand postulate of the system.” For above all 


“Wd. 290: 

** Loyson is quoted in Damiron, Op. cit. 178, as saying that, if 
Bonald and Maistre were right in their philosophies, “God 
would have said to man, when He put him in society, ‘I am 
establishing you in a condition which should make you at once 
both better and happier; I am giving you an absolute master 
who is responsible to me alone for his conduct to you; but if 


ttt a. Se ee 


THE NEO-CHRISTIANS 87 


things, it is authority which conserves, which holds 
change in restraint, which is most closely analogous to 
God, the unmoved mover. The mere contemplation of 
long dynasties, of enduring institutions, is a delight to 
such minds as these and one can almost feel Maistre’s 
joy as he writes, “ No human institution has lasted 
eighteen centuries,’ and thus implies the divinity of the 
Church.” Since authority is an opponent of change, it 
is good ; since disobedience is an opponent of authority, 
it is bad. 

Maistre here voices a reaction to the world which is 
probably elemental. The spectacle of a changing uni- 
verse has depressed mankind from the days of Hera- 
cleitus and before. The poetry of Western Europe 
is full of these laments, and one can almost generalize 
and say that not until the eighteenth century did men 
in any numbers look upon change as a blessing, as an 
opportunity for creation or progress. Before the doc- 
trine of evolution had seeped down to the mass of the 
people, change was the destroyer, not the producer, and 
although there were many men to bewail the permanence 
and duration of things, there were none to rejoice over 
their destruction. 

The precursors of our contemporaries who rejoice in 
change were undoubtedly those optimists among philos- 
ophers and political scientists who believed in the steady 


he makes for your ill fortune—I shall hold you guilty for 

punishing him.” Maistre’s hatred of the Revolution is not 

stimulated by the slaughter it entailed, for War is divine 

(“ Soirées ” II 35) but by the disruption of dynastic continuity. 
*“Du Pape,” Concl. xii. 


88 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


and infinite perfectibilty of the human species. They 
were, however, the very men whose teachings were so 
friendly to the event of all others which Maistre found 
monstrous, the French Revolution. These men were the 
Anti-Christians and above all, the Anti-Catholics, of 
whom Condorcet is as good an example as one could 
find. Such people saw no solace in the endurance of the 
status quo. The status quo to them was but a stage in 
the great movement toward the realization of perfec- 
tion. Every year is a step forward; every age is better 
than the age before. And Condorcet, though he had 
to poison himself to avoid falling into the hands of the 
newest and best régime, spent his last days hymning its 
glories and the greater glories which were to come. — 
The hatred of change is but one side of Maistre’s 
philosophy. Joined to it is his hatred of diversity. Just 
as the eternal is the good, so is the one the good; the 
temporal and the many go hand in hand. In the 
“Soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg”” (II 113), he insists 
that our sense of numbers and order are proofs of God’s 
existence, so holy is the tie which binds. Or again, 
“The more one examines the universe, the more one 
feels driven to believe that evil comes from a certain 
division which one cannot explain, and that the return to 
good depends upon a contrary force which pushes us 
unceasingly towards a certain unity equally inconceiva- 
ble.’ Thence he moves on to note the human tendency 
to unify things “which nature seems to have totally 
separated.” (Jd. II 190.) The worst thing which he 


can say about the benighted Greeks is that they were | 


i oh 


THE NEO-CHRISTIANS 8&9 


‘ 


essentially the “esprit de division.” “ He is united as 
usually with Bonald in defence of medievalism and of 
all the practical consequences it entails. 

The unity of the Middle Ages was an ideal which by 
the end of the thirteenth century seemed well-nigh real- 
ized. Arts and letters, science and philosophy, were to 
all intents and purposes attuned to the Catholic note. 
This is to be taken literally, not figuratively. The 
Church Militant had conquered; it prescribed the very 
colors to be used in composing stained glass windows; * 
to say nothing of the ultimate axioms of knowledge. It 
went so far as to say that although kings might wield 
the temporal sword, they wielded it ad nutum et patien- 
tiam sacerdotis.” There was a divine order, a hierarchy, 
a system. The world had become a celestial mosaic, in 
which all deeds and thoughts were symbols whose mean- 
ing was the pattern as a whole. 

It was that sort of unity which Maistre longed for 
and which he thought he found exemplified in the abso- 
lute monarchy of the old régime. In an absolute mon- 
archy the power is in one hand, in one person; in a 
republic it is scattered. So in Catholicism, truth is in 
the Church, expressed by Christ’s vicar, the Pope. The 
Church and the Pope are but one, says Maistre in “ du 

““ Pape” liv. IV, ch. ix. Cf. conclusion to the same work and 
Lamennais’s “Essai sur l’Indifférence,” ch. xxv, which cites 
Saint Augustine’s correlation of the beautiful with unity in 
his Epist. XVIII, Ad Coelestin. 

* Male; “L’Art Religieux du XIII*° Siécle en Fr.,” 4th ed., 


P. 1919, esp. 457 ff. . 
” The bull Unam Sanctam, “ Enchiridion ” 469. 


go FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


Pape” (III, ii). In Protestantism, truth is multiple. The 
very history of Protestantism, he says (Jd. IV, iii, iv), 
is the disintegration of dogma, from the simple and 
unified enduring pronouncements of the Church, to the 
complex, various, changing confessions of individuals. 

Unity within the national state is not enough for 
Maistre. Had it been, Napoleon, whom he was forced 
to admire,” would have been almost his ideal, failing 
only in his lack of respect for the Pope. The power of 
various states must be unified and of state churches must 
be destroyed. The stronghold of the French clergy, 
Gallicanism, he attacked with mighty blows—Carthago 
delenda est. So too, the secular character of kings must 
be denied. Kings are not merely political personages. 
The dogma which Machiavelli opposed with such de- 
cision is reasserted by Maistre. The King is the sub- 
ordinate of the Church; the temporal sword is wielded 
by the spiritual hand. The Pope is called “ the natural 
chief, the most powerful promoter, the great Demiurge 
of universal civilization.” (Jd. III, ii.) Maistre takes 
divine right so seriously that he argues from the average 
length of the reigns of Christian princes to the biological 
peculiarity of their family stock. It is as different from 
other stocks, he says (Jd. III, v), as a tree is from a 
bush. 

Undoubtedly circumstances led Maistre and Bonald 
to overstate their cases. They reasoned not from love 
of truth but from hatred of contradiction. There was 


” Cogordan; Op. cit. 68; Daudet, 618; Sainte-Beuve; CL 
XV 72. 





THE NEO-CHRISTIANS OI 


no error in their world ; there was only sin. Hence they 
not only disagreed with their opponents; they loathed 
them ; they wished to stamp them out. Bonald always 
refers to non-catholic philosophies as “ philosophies 
abjectes.” Maistre’s invective against Voltaire is as 
revolting as he thinks Voltaire is. “ He plunges into the 
muck, he rolls in it, he laps it up. . . Paris le couronna; 
Sodome Vent bann.”” Their insolence might have been 
more tolerable had they been more clairvoyant. But 
what was one to say when Maistre announced in his 
“ Considérations sur la France” (p. 104) that either 
the Americans would never build the city of Washing- 
ton ; or, if they did, that it would never be called ‘ Wash- 
ington”; or, if it were, that Congress would never sit 
there? This was excusable in 1796, but I quote from 
the edition printed from a copy corrected by him in 
1817 and printed in 1866. With such opinions on 
record, their opponents could afford to laugh at them.” 
Based on the axiom that man is thoroughly bad, “ that 
only God’s mysterious grace can make him better, their 
philosophy succeeded only in frightening men from the 
Church. The one school of thinkers it directly influ- 
enced was condemned by the very Church it lived to 
fortify. One of Maistre’s most enthusiastic exponents, 


2)“ Soirées ” I 243. 

See “ Considérations,” 104. Cf. his prophecy that God was 
making French the universal language, (“ Soirées” I 153) and 
about the greatness of Lamennais quoted in Maréchal; “ Lamen- 
nais et Lamartine,” P. 1907, p. 127. He had better luck when he 
prophesied, after the fall of the Decazes ministry, that the 
royal family would again be driven from France. 

=“ Soirées” I 84, 214. 


Q2 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


the Canon Lecigne, admits that he had no following 
during his lifetime.” He attributes this to the lingering 
of revolutionary habits, although Maistre did not die 
until 1821. He hesitates to lay the blame for Lamen- 
nais on Maistre and attributes no one to the school 
until the middle of the century when Louis Veuillot rose 
to a sort of prominence. The others he classifies as 
followers of Chateaubriand, whom he is right in dis- 
tinguishing sharply from our two thinkers. 

Yet Maistre’s Catholic friends read and appreciated 
his books. The group of ‘‘ Le Défenseur ” was enthu- 
siastic and Maistre received letters of praise from 
Chateaubriand, Fontanes, Bonald, Lamartine, and 
Lamennais on the appearance of ‘“‘ Du Pape.” Lamar- 
tine wrote as follows, pointing out why the warm recep- 
tion of the work was not more general: 

““M. de Bonald and you, Monsieur le Comte, and a 
few men who follow your footsteps from afar, have 
founded an imperishable school of high philosophy and 
Christian politics, which more than any other takes 
root amid the growing generation. It will bear its 
fruits and they are judged in advance. . . . You have 
been surprised that the papers, especially those which 
ought to adopt your ideas, should have remained silent 
with regard to you. But that comes from certain preju- 
dices of the country, whose ridiculous gallican preten- 
tions you know so admirably, and from a mot d’ordre 
which people have believed they must religiously ob- 
serve, and the explanation of which I have given in 


your behalf to Louis. That has not, however, pre- 
vented in any way the rapid circulation of the work.” 


*** Toseph de Maistre,” P. 1914, p. 316. 
*“O. C. de Joseph de Maistre,” Lyon 1886, XIV, Corre- 
spondance 362. 





THE NEO-CHRISTIANS 93 


In other words the book was read and believed by all 
those who had no need of conviction. 

It is not until the present day, says Lecigne, in the 
group of L’ Action Francaise, that the voice of Joseph 
de Maistre was again heard. “If Joseph de Maistre 
were to return,’ said his great-grandson, Count 
Rodolphe de Maistre in 1900, “ he would be one of the 
active members of l’Action Francaise.’ His real 
triumph however would have been the Vatican Council, 
which declared the primacy of the Pope and his infal- 
libility. “I can see de Maistre,” says his admirer, “ on 
the morrow of the Vatican Council. His brow is 
radiant, all the clouds are scattered, his prophecies are 
realized. And the look he casts towards the future is 
from then on as confident as, the evening before, it was 
troubled and ill at ease.” ™ 


II 


The Christianity of Bonald and Maistre could hardly 
have moved men to conversion. As men these philoso- 
phers were kindly, friendly, even gentle at times, as 
their letters prove. But as writers they were brilliant 
and faithful to logic, for the most part, and their words 
lacked that charm which was known to be necessary if 
they were to restore Christianity to France. “ Persua- 
sive charm,” said Fontanes, in his prediction of the 
Christian apology which was to come, “ would perhaps 
be a greater necessity than victorious logic which sub- 
jugates the reason.” It was that which the theological 

* Lecigne; Op. cit. 373, 360, 380, 241. 


* Sainte-Beuve; “Chateaubriand et son Groupe Littéraire,” 
P. 1860, p. 84. 


94 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


school lacked. They were excellent spokesmen for the 
Catholics of the old régime who needed no persuasion to 
admit the truth of their religion. But what could they 
offer to the gilded youth of Fréron, who had been 
through the Terror, seen Notre Dame de Paris used as 
a wine market, and danced in the bals des victimes? ™ 
If they were to be touched, it was not through dogma 
or even deductive reasoning. They had seen enough of 
that. It was necessary to break the ground in a more 
forcible way before the seed was sown. And the instru- 
ment alone fitted for such work was sentimentalism. 
Otherwise Catholicism would remain a sterile doctrine 
of the classroom, and the passionate denunciation of 
Church and priest which had been voiced by Voltairean 
and Rousseauist alike would still whisper dangerously 
and tempt the young away. 

It was this function which Chateaubriand performed. 
Where he pointed out the beauty of Christianity, the 
more rational of Catholics would point out its truth. He 
had not always been so ready to believe. In his younger 
days, in his “ Essai sur les Révolutions ” (1797), which 
he later condemned but could not suppress, had he not 
expressed himself with the scepticism of a Philosopher? 
It took the death of his mother to convince him of the 
error of his ways. “I admit,” he said of his conversion 
in the preface to his ‘‘ Génie du Christianisme,” “ that 

* See Goncourt; “ Hist. de la société fr. pendant le Directoire,” 
nouv. ed., P. 1880, p. 140; Ch. Nodier; “Souvenirs de la 
Révolution et de l’Empire,” nouv. ed., P. 1850, I 121. The whole 


article on the “ Réaction Thermodorienne” gives a vivid picture 
of the social life of the time. I do not know how reliable it is. 





THE NEO-CHRISTIANS 95 


I did not yield to a great insight into supernatural 
things ; my conviction came from the heart ; I wept and 
Pe pelieved.” 

It was, then, upon the belief that comes from weeping 
that the revival of Catholicism was to be founded. The 
comédie larmoyante was to give way to the religion 
larmoyante, “ Le Pére de Famille ” may have produced 
streaming eyes in 1769 and hisses in 1811, as Mr. Irving 
Babbitt says; the “ Génie du Christianisme”’ would 
have produced laughter in 1769 and succeeded in pro- 
ducing contrition in 1802. The same emotions were 
produced, but by different stimuli ; it is an open question 
which was the more legitimate. It is certain that we 
cannot close it here, but must be content with noting the 
change. Chateaubriand and his friends noted it and lost 
no time in profiting by it. In one of the most eloquent 
and shallow books in French, he conquered for himself 
an enduring place in the literature of his country and 
for Catholicism a place in the hearts of his countrymen. 
He did not create the return to Catholicism, but he did 
plead for it in attractive and persuasive language. From 
then on the movement which had been in progress from 
the days when Jordan had begun to urge the re-estab- 
lishment of the cult was stamped with the seal of the 
world’s approval. “ Le Génie du Christianisme ” was 
announced year after year and finally made a seasonable 
appearance in the year of the Concordat. While 


*° “Rousseau and Romanticism,” Boston and N. Y., 1g19, 
p. 126. 


96 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


Napoleon made it legal for one to be a Catholic, Cha- 
teaubriand made it fashionable.” 

The fame of “ Atala,” which had been published 
detached from the greater manuscript, was surpassed. 
Editions were multiplied beyond all precedent. ‘“ The 
book of Citoyen Chateaubriand,” said the Gazette de 
France (7 floréal X-27 April 1802), “entitled ‘Le 
Génie du Christianisme’ is producing a great sensation. 
Appearing at the end of a revolution in which the prin- 
ciples of religion and morality were corrupted, in which, 
under the name of philosophy, an audacious doctrine 
substituted empty systems for the former beliefs, it is 
not a matter of surprise that this book should excite the 
indignation of those who, persisting in their dangerous 
opinions, find fault with the peace which the govern- 
ment has just offered to the Church, and lacking good 
reasons, should hurl against the author threadbare 
sarcasms of which the philosophers of the eighteenth 
century were so prodigal.” Within a year the Pub- 
liciste (15 floréal XI-5 May 1803) was announcing the 

* I do not mean to suggest by this that Chateaubriand’s con- 
version was insincere. Whether it was or not is of very little 
importance for the history of philosophy. Cassagne in his 
extraordinarily well documented “La Vie Politique de Francois 
Chateaubriand,” P. 1911 sees in “ Le Génie” a well calculated 
step taken by its author and his circle to further his personal 
ambitions. The Abbé Bertin, however, has written a learned 
dissertation, “La sincérité religieuse de Chateaubriand,” P. 
1899 to sustain the opposite thesis. There is no a priori reason 
why he should not have been sincerely converted and yet lucky 


enough to have his conversion aid him materially. 
“Aulard; “ P. sous le Consulat,” III 3. 


ee een ~ 


THE NEO-CHRISTIANS 97 


second edition dedicated to the First Consul with the 
“ Defense.” “ Three months later the Observateur (11 
thermidor XI-30 July 1803) said, “ New editions of the 
“Génie du Christianisme’ have just been put on sale. 
They are this time decorated with the most sumptuous 
and luxurious typography...” And the following 
winter the Gazette heralded several reprints, in 18mo, 
in octavo, and an abridged edition for children in duo- 
decimo.” Ballanche, a printer as well as a philosopher, 
whose own sentimental book, “‘ Du Sentiment considéré 
dans ses rapports avec la Littérature et les Arts,” was 
so pathetic a failure, was asked thirty thousand francs 
by the converted Chauteaubriand for an edition of “le 
Génie.” “ And I do not despair of obtaining them,” 
wrote the author to Gueneau.” It was as much his per- 
sonal fortune as that of the Church. 

Napoleon, whose own appreciation of Chateaubriand 
was strengthened by Fontanes’s, rewarded him with the 
ambassadorship to Rome. There he learned that the 
Vatican too recognized its worth. When he paid his 
official visit to Pius VII, he was received with tender 
affection. The Pontiff had a copy of the book by his 
side, told him that he had read it, and called his “ mon 
fils.’ In his joy he immediately wrote the news to 


Bld ALV. 40. 

Plab TV e374: 

* Td. IV 609. 

* “ Correspond. Générale de Ch.,” pub. by Louis Thomas, P. 
1912, I 97. 

*° “ Correspond.,” letter to Fontanes, 6 July 1803; letter to 
Joubert, 3 July 1803. Also “ Mem. d’Outre-Tombe,” II 320. 


8 


98 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


Napoleon’s sister, Mme. Bacciochi, whence it could be 
accidentally transmitted to the First Consul. “ He is in 
transports of happiness,” wrote Fontanes to his friend 
Joubert.” He had thoroughly rehabilitated Catholicism, 
he might have felt, and left only the Idéologues dis- 
satished. The young, whom it was important to cap- 
ture, were won over without delay. As Sainte-Beuve 
said, France had a “ whole army of parlor Christians.” “ 

The argument of ‘‘ Le Génie du Christianisme ”’ was 
of the same sort as the argument of Volney’s “ Ruines ” 
or Condorcet’s “ Esquisses,” founded upon a personal 
conviction with very little unquestionable evidence. In 
the past, it runs, Christianity has shown mankind the 
example of unprecedented courage in the work of mis- 
sionaries and of unprecedented spirituality in the work 
of the monastic orders. It rid the world of slavery,” it 
welcomed the weary traveller in its abbeys, it rescued 
the fallen in soul and body. To the Church the world 


*Raynal; ‘Op. ct. 73. 

* “ Ch. et son Groupe,” 330. See the whole fourteenth lecture. 
Napoleon was a kind of parlor-Christian, too. In the words of 
Mme. de Staél, “ He needed a clergy as chamberlains, titles, 
decorations, in short he needed all the former caryatides of 
power.” (“Consid. sur la Réyv. Fr.” ch. vi.) He needed them 
also, it should be admitted, to help restore order in Fr. and to 
satisfy what remained of his native religious instincts. Cf. 
Vandal; “ Raisons du Concordat,” 516, 597. 

® Lamennais too was going to teach that Christianity had rid 
the world of slavery in “ Essai sur l’Indifférence,” 2d. pt., ch. 
iii and iv. It was a doctrine to which he clung even in his 
later days. See “Le Livre du Peuple,” xiv. As for the merits 
of the case, which must particularly interest Americans, see 
Ferraz; “ Hist. de la Philos. Fr.,” P. 1880, p. 179. 


aa = 
Oe) ee ee 


THE NEO-CHRISTIANS 99 


owes education, letters and the arts; France the civili- 
zation of her law and the beneficence of her rulers. 

In part true and in part false, “ Le Génie du Chris- 
tianisme ”’ undoubtedly did a valuable service if it aided 
in clarifying men’s minds about the real nature of the 
Middle Ages. After this book and others of its kind, it 
could be no longer excusable to use the word “ Gothic ” 
as a synonym for “ barbarous ” and the word “ medie- 
val’ as a synonym for “ignorant.” Were we engaged 
in writing the history of eighteenth century ideas, we 
might be able to show that as a matter of fact the regard 
for the Middle Ages during that period was not so low 
as writers usually maintain. However it is incontestable 
that Chateaubriand had a more popular influence than 
any of his predecessors. Furthermore, by emphasizing 
the beauty of Christianity, he succeeded in turning 
men’s eyes from what was wicked and inessential in its 
institutions to what would prove to be its noblest char- 
acteristics: its power of inspiration to righteous living 
and the arts. This was more than Bonald and Maistre 
could claim for their harsh treatises. 

But much better than the argument was the style of 
“Le Génie.” Full of a tender reverence for his subject, 
Chateaubriand wrote of it in organ tones. The stately 
dignity of his majestic sentences, hollow, as they seem 
now, was captivating to the ear habituated to Delille and 
Fontanes. They warmed hearts chilled by neo-classicism 
on the one hand and neo-scepticism on the other. Here 
was no cynicism, no analysis, no ridicule, but genuine 
nobility of expression. The melancholy which perfumed 
its pages made its attraction more difficult to resist. And 


IO0Q FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


few resisted it. Whatever motive prompted its crea- 
tion, it satisfied a hunger of the times and no one could 
say now that he lacked a reason for his beliefs. , 

A reason was all that was wanted, however shaky it 
might be. Bit by bit scepticism had gone out of fash- 
ion.” “ Philosophy is losing credit in many minds,” 
wrote Mme. d’Anjou, Louis XVIII’s correspondent in 
Paris (11 July 1800). “ Not that the greater part are 
becoming religious, but that the reign of impiety is 
drawing to a close. It was a fashion; it has gone out. 
Today you see more books in defence of religion than 
in favor of the system of disbelief, and the atheists no 
longer hold the middle of the road.’ La Harpe was 
working on an apology of religion and Mme. de Genlis 
had announced in August 1801 a “ Dictionnaire poétique 
de la Bible a l’usage des artistes.” Ballanche, as we 
have said, had published his “‘ Du Sentiment ” with the 
appeal to poets and painters to turn to Christianity for 
their subject matter. ‘ What!” he cried,” “ is it not this 
same religion which enlarged the thoughts of Michel- 
angelo, which guided the sublime brushes of Raphael 
and of Rubens?” In vain did Ginguené protest on 
behalf of the intellectuals that there was no relation 
between truth and the shedding of tears, in vain did he 
ridicule Chateaubriand’s love for the Middle Ages, the 
epoch of “la sainte ignorance,’ in vain did he de- 

" Gautier; Op. cit. 272. 

"Vandal; Op. cit. 503. 


® Cassagne; Op. cit. I 86. 
MP.) 270, 





THE NEO-CHRISTIANS IOI 


nounce him as anti-revolutionary.” The day of Gin- 
guené and his kind was over. 

Not only did Chateaubriand give people a kind of 
sanction for their religion, but he gave them a kind of 
personal sanction in keeping with the philosophic trend, 
if aiming at a different goal from that of philosophy. 
For the authority of tears is the authority of the indi- 
vidual, and the conclusion is irresistible that here Cha- 
teaubriand preserved traces of his eighteenth century 
allegiances. The philosophers of that time had definitely 
established the mode of self-examination and self- 
analysis. If all knowledge came from sensation, it came 
from an individual and not a social source. Chateau- 
briand continued this tradition. Such procedure certainly 
was contrary to the ways of the Church. If one is to rely 
on one’s heart for truth, what is to become of authority ? 
Chateaubriand had made a move which would lead to 
heresy. That is why he incurs the ridicule of such 
writers as Canon Lecigne. If he was accepted by Pius 
VII, it was because he was temporarily useful. But a 
man who criticised Mme. de Staél’s “ De la Littérature ” 
because its author trusted the outbursts of her heart but 
half the time, was a man for Popes to shun.” He was 
too interested in developing the individual at the ex- 
pense, if need be, of society. We have seen how little 
such an inclination points towards Catholicism as taught 
by Bonald and Maistre. 


“La Décade Philos., 30 prairial X (19 June 1802), pp. 537, 
549, 552. 

*® Blennerhassett; Op. cit. II 422. Cf. “ Correspondance” 
£23. 


I02 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


It points rather towards the Protestantism of his sup- 
posed opponent, Mme. de Stael. 

Supposed opponent only. For Mme. de Staél and 
Chateaubriand had much in common. To be sure they 
were not always conscious of it. As we have said, 
Chateaubriand harshly criticised her ‘ De la Littéra- 
ture” when it appeared, and when “Le Génie” ap- 
peared she prophesied that he would cover himself 
with ridicule.” But she had recognized the talent in 
“Atala” ™ and in the preface to “ Delphine ” she spoke 
of the “ original, extraordinary, striking imagination of 
‘le Génie.’””” They could praise one another with sin- 
cerity, for they were in spite of Chateaubriand’s Cathol- 
icism, disciples of the one master, Rousseau. Under- 
neath the language of them both is the sentimental 
tradition.” 

Rousseau was by no means the soft hearted neuras- 
thenic that certain modern opponents of romanticism 
would have us believe. The Rousseau of the “ Confes- 
sions ”’ is supplemented by the Rousseau of the “ Contrat 
Social” and the “ Discours sur l’Inégalité.” A slight 
emphasis on one side or the other is all that is needed 
to show us now the Rousseau of Mr. Irving Babbitt, 
now the Rousseau of M. Duguit. 

Chateaubriand had said in his early “ Essai” that 
had he lived in Rousseau’s day, he would have been a 
disciple, but that he would have asked the master not to 


 Blennerhassett II 442. 


™ Td. 444. 
™ OC, ed. Firmin-Didot, P. 1844, I 336. 
” Cf. Blennerhassett II 424. 


ee, 





THE NEO-CHRISTIANS 103 


publish the news. Mme. de Staél in her earliest pub- 
lished work gave the world her eulogy of the author of 
“Emile,” “ Lettres sur les écrits et le caractére de J. J. 
Rousseau.” (1788.) She has no shame in announcing 
her fresh and youthful enthusiasm for the weary old 
sentimentalist. To her his weariness is pathetic; his 
faults are to be laid at other doors than his own; mainly 
at his wife’s who, she thinks, drove him to suicide.” He 
is the one figure, she feels, to whom one can turn for 
inspiration. It is inspiration which she demands, not 
precept. Like so many of her contemporaries, she 
seemed thirsty for enthusiasm. It is as if some instinct 
had been starved in them. 

Mme. de Stael retained the lessons of her master 
throughout her life under all circumstances. There is 
scarcely a book from her hands which does not bear his 
impress. She is not always consistent, as when she slips 
into admitting that men are naturally “ méchants.” ” 
And of course there are non-Rousseauistic influences at 
work in her philosophic development. She occasionally 
shows traces of Ideology, as when she says in her intro- 
duction to “De Vinfluence des passions sur le bon- 
heur 
perfecting itself arrives at simple ideas. But her later 


9) 82 


that science begins with complex ideas and in 


knowledge of the Germans cures her of any traces of 
sensationalism. “ 


ere ch, vi, OC | 19 1. 1; 22. 
* Blennerhassett II 417. 

BOC L112. 

8“ Allemagne,” Pt. III, ch. iv. 


I04. FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


Knowledge, for Mme. de Staél, seems to be the prob- 
lem of understanding what is always a bit beyond the 
reach of the understanding. The few truths which we 
have to start with do not satisfy man’s craving for 
deeper knowledge. Deeper knowledge, however, for 
instance knowledge of moral truth, is incompatible with 
strict precision.” Hence man finds himself with no 
sure guide in those very difficulties which are his most 
profound concern. This perplexity which is at the 
heart of every moral decision is no matter to be lightly 
decided. “ The insight of our mind,” says the mature 
Mme. de Staél, ‘is too uncertain for us to be able to 
judge the moment when the eternal laws of duty ought 
to be suspended; or rather, that moment does not 
exist.” We are then trapped between the knowledge 
that there is a law to cover our case and our innate 
inability to comprehend it in detail, We know when 
conscience speaks; we do not know what it says.” But 
we must try to understand it, knowing that we shall 
fail; we shall find ourselves in the darkness which pre- 
ceded the creation and not in the light which followed. 

This antithesis between our aspirations and our capa- 
bilities is never very far from her thought. She admits 
that she can never keep her feelings and her ideas 
separate; yet she insists that ideas should never be 
vague.” She does not permit herself to excuse obscurity 

*“ Essai sur les Fictions,” intro. remarks, OC I 62. 

*® “ Allemagne,” Pt. III, ch. xiii. 

Ld) ett vit, 


* “De la Littérature,” ch. ix, OC I 334. 
*s “ Allemagne,” Pt. III ch. ix. 


q 
a 
‘” 





THE NEO-CHRISTIANS 105 


because she is unable to avoid it. She knows that the 
passions are the great impetus towards unhappiness ; 
she pleads like a Stoic for mastery over them; but she 
admits that no one is ever completely master of them.” 
She is a deep believer in the value of'religion, as deep 
as Rousseau; she censures the Institut for its anti- 
religious bias;” but she will not give the ministers of 
religion rights above those of the rest of mankind.” 
Love, finally, is one of man’s greatest blessings, but it is 
almost never found.” The rarest passion is the best. 

The springs of action for Mme. de Stael are always 
non-rational, She reads into “Tom Jones ”’ the lesson 
that judgments founded upon appearance are false and 
that natural and involuntary qualities are the highest.” 
Moreover they should be non-rational, for those inner 
chambers of the soul are the holy of holies where our 
better nature resides. Because this is true, what she 
calls “natural morality” is finer than “ devotion.” 
Spontaneous unreasoned goodness is better than good- 
ness which is planned. Adapting the familiar lines of 
Dryden to her purpose, she says: 

“He (devotion) raised a mortal to the skies, 
“She (natural morality) drew an angel down.” 

The springs of action, in spite of their non-rational 

nature, are not utterly irrational and use the reason to 


Pe assions, wconcl., OC 1172; cf. 170. 

* “Tix Années d’Exil,” ch. ix; OC III 265. 
% “ Considérations,” ch. ix, OC III 265. 

" “ Passions,” pref. note to ch. iv, OC I 132. 
P richens, Ft. III, OC I 7o. 

** “ Passions,” sect. ii, OC I 160. 


106 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


give themselves voice. Sentiment in itself is both 
beauty and truth, but in itself, it is mute.” It prompts 
us to act and we do well to listen, but we need another 
instrument to articulate its promptings. That instrument 
is philosophy. “ Philosophy,” she held in her youth, “is 
simply the search for truth guided by the reason.” 
The search for truth can be carried on in other ways, 
one infers; philosophy is the most reasonable way. It 
is for the individual to accept it or not, and if one admits 
contradiction in his ideas or supernatural causes in his 
facts, he will oppose philosophy. 

Her notion of philosophy makes the question of its 
value of interest. Her answer to this question is what 
is to be expected from a child of the eighteenth century. 
Philosophy is of no value in itself ; its pursuit is useful, 
for by it one conquers his passions and gains in return 
the continuous exercise of his active faculties—a good 
beyond price.” Metaphysics, especially idealistic meta- 
physics, is almost a sure means of developing the moral 
faculties.” As in the Stoics and Spinoza, so in Mme. de 

"“ Allemagne,” Pt. III ch. v, vii. 

* “De la Littérature,” Pt. II, ch. vi, OC I 313. “I never 
give to the word ‘philosophy’. . . the sense that its detractors 
have wished to give it in our day, either opposing philosophy to 
religious ideas, or calling philosophical those systems which are 
purely sophistic. I mean by philosophy the general knowledge 
of causes and effects in the moral order or in physical nature, 
the independence of reason, the exercise of thought, in short in 
literature those works which depend upon reflection and analy- 
sis, and which are not solely the product of the imagination, 
the heart, or the wit (lesprit).” (Disc. prélim., “ De la Littéra- 
ture,” OC I 205 n. 1.) 


” “ Passions,” sect. III ch. iii, OC I 165. 
*“ Allemagne,” Pt. III ch. vii. 


P 
. 
| 
g 





THE NEO-CHRISTIANS 107 


Stael, the calm which comes only when one is master of 
the world comes through the exercise of the reason. 
But in her the reason is not its own excuse for being. 

She shows signs in such passages of believing that 
the soul must and can assent to beliefs that comfort it. 
She seems, for instance, to prove the truth of immor- 
tality by the fact that it is sweet to think of and the 
falsity of materialism by the revolt of our moral nature 
against it.” This was in 1796, before she knew Kant. 
After her visits to Germany, such suggestions are more 
frequent and we find her proving the superiority of 
Christianity over Pantheism because it answers more 
satisfactorily the needs of our heart.” In a similar 
spirit she praises Kant for having definitely banished 
God and morality from metaphysics, since metaphysics 
is not a science with a specific subject matter but a 
manner of living.” 

Since it is a manner of living, one can understand 
why to her philosophy is an individual affair, like love.” 
All men are not alike ; their problems are different ; their 
souls are different; how then could they solve their 
problems in the same way? Ultimate questions, she 
believes, have too many sides to permit any one man’s 
answering them all. But when she says things like that, 
she fails to be as acute strategically as she might be. 
It would be wiser for her to cling to her anti-intellec- 

” “ Passions,” sect. III, ch. iii, OC I 165. 

1“ Allemagne,” Pt. III ch. vii. 


feme bt, iil, ch, vi. 
ra, Ft. III ch. vy. 


108 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


tualism to the bitter end, to explain philosophy consis- 
tently as she explains religions. ™ 

There is a fine harmony between her religion and 
politics and her philosophy. Sure of a natural correla- 
tion between truth and individual opinion (reason), she 
can see nothing but good in encouraging its exercise.” 
Protestantism she feels is based on the right of free 
inquiry, whereas Catholicism denies this right.™ To 
use Bonald’s words, Protestantism is based on the 
authority of evidence ; Catholicism upon the evidence of 
authority. Mme. de Staél would agree and would find 
as much satisfaction in the situation as Bonald did. 
“Protestantism and Catholicism,” she says,” “do not 
come from there having been popes and a Luther. That 
is a poor manner of viewing history, to attribute it to 
chance, Protestantism and Catholicism exist in the 
human heart; they are moral powers which develop 
in nations because they exist in each man.” But Prot- 
estantism alone recognizes this fact and hence will 
alone receive the support of Mme, de Staél.™ 

This passion for the right of free inquiry is what 
makes her a liberal in politics. Systems which lose the 

ee) PERN Chicas 

Tas Bt eae 

arts 

we Fd! PROT V iehin aye 

Tt is interesting to note that Mme. de Staél is anxious to 
point out the charm which Protestantism has for the imagina- 
tion, in order to counter-balance the kind of apology which 
Chateaubriand and his group had made for Catholicism. Hence 


she dwells on the Moravian brotherhood. See “ Allemagne,” 
Pt. IV, ch. iti and concluding words. 


q 
g 
: 
a 
ki; 
7 





. THE NEO-CHRISTIANS IO0Q 


individual in the state are her abhorrence. The despotic 
rule of one man like Napoleon, which submerges the 
individual in his loyalty to a ruler are equally abhorrent. 
She cares more for the individual than for the nation 
and her cosmopolitanism makes her notorious. She has 
no country, as M. Gautier points out.” She was born 
in France—which she passionately loved—of a Genevan 
father and a Vaudoise mother. Her husband was a 
Swede. The country of her choice was England ; of her 
birth and friends, France; of her thought, Germany ; 
of her soul, the international society of distinguished 
men. She had never been a woman of one party, never 
feeling that one cause—except personal liberty—was 
worth the loss of free action. During the Directory in 
Paris, her circle included royalists like Matthieu de 
Montmorency and Dupont de Nemours and republicans 
like Daunou, Cabanis, Destutt de Tracy, and Ginguené.™ 
With her an individual alone counted and it mattered 
not what his belief was as long as it included tolerance 
for others’ beliefs. 

M. Gautier’s thesis that her hatred of Napoleon was 
in part personal, having arisen from his having wounded 
her pride may be true. It would indeed be strange if 
so burning an individualist should not have been sensi- 
tive to personal wounds. But, as he too points out, there 
was between her and the Emperor a difference which 
could not be reconciled, a difference of philosophy. If 
ever two souls expressed beliefs from the bottom of 
their hearts, these two did. The soul of the Emperor 


8 Op. cit. 275. 
4” Blennerhassett II 281. 


IIOQ FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


responded to hierarchical order, personal power, author- 
ity. He loved the genres tranchés, as he told Goethe at 
Erfurth. He tried to reconstruct in Paris the Augustan 
Age of Rome. Centralization is the symbol of his rule 
and he stands in history as one of the last great cen- 
tralizers on the European continent. Human suffering 
seems to have counted for as little in his mind as human 
wills—until the Hundred Days. Then he repented.” 

There might have been a kindred sentiment with 
Mme. de Staél as there was for a time with Chateau- 
briand. But the philosophy of Chateaubriand lacked the 
one element which saved Mme. de Staél’s from becom- 
ing egoism. That element was “ enthusiasm,” which lifts 
the individual out of himself, transcending his personal 
needs, and sets him down among his fellows.” There 


™ Benj. Constant; “Lettres sur les Cent Jours,” 2d letter, 
first pub. in La Minerve Francaise, 1819, VIII too. 

*+ Blennerhassett III 384. Mme. de Staél seizes upon this 
terrible deficiency in Napoleon and exhibits it in her “ Con- 
sidérations ” (ch. xviii, “De la politique de Bonaparte”) to 
show how it prevented his becoming the real master of the 
world. (OC III 239). Mr. Babbitt too feels that Mme. de Stael 
has this saving grace. She is never, for instance, so overcome 
as Chateaubriand by her “uniqueness and wonderfulness,” he 
says (Op. cit. 50). I do not subscribe, however, to Mr. Babbitt’s 
interpretation of Chateaubriand as a wilful romantic who took 
these attitudes because he was romantic. Anyone reading the 
life of Chateaubriand, torn between personal ambition and a 
sense of decency, would normally have developed all the quirks 
of temperament which characterize him. A sympathetic and 
yet critical study of Chateaubriand, based on modern psy- 
chology, and made by someone who is not a fanatic, would 
clear his case from the docket. There are hopes that the studies 
now being made by Professor Chinard and his pupils will 
satisfy this need. 





THE NEO-CHRISTIANS Iii 


is no such enthusiasm in Chateaubriand, there is none 
in Napoleon. It is the saving grace of Mme. de Staél. 
It is what she contributes as her peculiar gift to the 
movement of French thought which will save the great 
leaders of French romanticism from the morbidity of 
their German parallels and make them progressively a 
force for liberalism and personal independence. Her 
understanding that the social emotions are the salvation 
of human beings is present in her early work on Rous- 
seau and is the culmination of her book on Germany. 
She may have thought that she was learning new lessons 
from her study of Kant and his followers. In reality 
she was learning over again the old lessons of her master 
Rousseau, as translated by German tongues. What she 
learned from Kant is the dignity of the moral being, the 
austerity of duty, and the legitimacy of obeying one’s 
conscience. Her study of German philosophy was sim- 
ply confirmation of what she had always believed, put 
into words which gave it a novel intellectual sanction. 

The two figures of Chateaubriand and Mme. de Stael 
stand for us in the main as two powerful forces making 
for a faith in the inner light. Chateaubriand’s influence 
was checked by the heresy which it would necessarily 
engender in the church he tried to defend. Mme. de 
Staél’s met no such check, and lovers of freedom could 
look back to her as an outspoken champion of their 
cause, a champion who had been willing—too willing—to 
suffer for it. Her epitaph could well be the lines which 
Benjamin Constant wrote in his journal, La Minerve 
Frangaise (1818, II 109), on the appearance of her 


II2 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


“‘ Considérations sur la Révolution Francaise.” Readers 
will find in it, he said, “that attachment to liberty, the 
deep feeling for the dignity of mankind, the respect for 
morality in politics and great human pursuits, that inex- 
haustible sensibility which made ths famous woman as 
admirable for her goodness as for her superior men- 
tality 


Itt 


Developing alongside of Chateaubriand was his con- 
temporary and friend, Pierre-Simon Ballanche. In some 
ways this fairly obscure figure deserves no special men- 
tion in a history of ideas. In his lifetime he was but 
faintly known. His first book, “ Du Sentiment con- 
sidéré dans ses rapports avec la littérature et les arts,” 
was received, as we have already said, with ridicule 
when it first appeared. Yet it proposed the same thesis 
as the “ Génie du Christianisme ” and appeared earlier. 
His second major work, “ Antigone,” published thirteen 
years later met with a more cordial reception™ but 
even it was considered by some critics as an inferior 
piece of writing and among its friends were to be found 
some writers who praised for a living. Otherwise the 
world was lukewarm. To be sure he found biographers 
during his lifetime. Sainte-Beuve and Loménie each 
wrote a notice of him, but the former was preparing a 
course of lectures on Chateaubriand and his group and 

™? Cf. Lerminier’s tribute in his “ De l’Influence de la Philos. 


etc.,” and his criticism of Chateaubriand, p. 295. 
™ Frainnet; Op. cit. 52. 





aif 
I 
* 


THE NEO-CHRISTIANS T13 


could scarcely omit from his studies one who alone 
shared the intimacy of l’Abbaye-aux-Bois with the 
author of “René”; the latter was publishing a series 
of portrait sketches in several volumes which included 
even Andrew Jackson.”* Much more significant is the 
fact that Damiron’s first edition of his history of French 
philosophy, which appeared in 1828, mentions Ballanche 
merely in an extended footnote to the conclusion (p. 
393). By then all of Ballanche’s important books had 
appeared. Perhaps Damiron’s neglect is caused by 
sectarianism. The anonymous philosophical critic of the 
Revue des Deux Mondes (Lerminier?) praises Bal- 
lanche highly, apropos of his “ Vision d’Hébal”’ for not 
imitating the German manner of philosophizing.™ This 
little slap at Cousin and his group indicates in what 
circles Ballanche found favor and may explain why 
Damiron continued to omit him from his history until 
its third edition. 

Later in 1834 Adolphe Mazure of Poitiers went so far 
as to say, “ M. Ballanche has rivals, he has no masters. 
M. Cousin has more powerful thought; his speech also, 
like his looks, troubles and baffles one; it is a torrent 
which is strong enough to uproot oaks ; but if his victory 
is not sudden, he passes on, he never returns. M. Bal- 
lanche on the contrary is a majestic river, which neither 
passes nor dries up, which charms you with the thou- 
sand picturesque incidents which it mirrors, which en- 

4“ Galérie des Contemporains Illustres,’ par un Homme 


de Rien, P. 1841. 
* RDM 1831, II 542. 


9 


II4 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


compasses you with its cooling ripples, into which it is 
a pleasure to descend, so great is the perfect serenity of 
his soul which reveals itself in his eloquence, appearing 
as the pure sand under the sparkling surface of a calm 
sheet of water, constantly gilded by the sun.” What 
fame this proves was not very enduring. The reward of 
an Academic chair came near the end of his life; he 
said that it was given him to keep Victor Hugo out of 
it." By the ’80’s Jean Vaudon was able to write that 
Ballanche had almost completely fallen into oblivion.™ 
Perhaps the only real influence he had was on a small 
group of workmen, to whom both Mme. Lenormant— 
the biographer of Mme. Récamier and of course an 
authority on the life of Ballanche—and M. Frainnet, 
his closest student, both refer vaguely. It was a group 
with Saint-Simonian tendencies which drifted into 
Fourierism and thence towards Ballanche. Ballanche 
himself says that he met its leader through Nodier.™ 
But little seems to have come of this. M. Frainnet in- 
cludes Pierre Leroux and Jean Reynaud among the men 
influenced by him,” but his reasoning is by no means 
conclusive. 

If it were for the force of Ballanche’s personality or 
the influence of his ideas, no one would think of includ- 

"6 La Fr. Littéraire 1834, XI. 

“Letter to J. J. Ampére in Ampére’s “ Mélanges d’Hist. 
littéraire,’ 2d ed., P. 1876, II 187. 

“8 “ Ballanche,” Corresp. 1883, n. s. XCVII 234; Frainnet 338. 


™ Ampere; “ Mélanges,” II to1. 
™ Op. cit. 258. 


ES ee ee ae eT eS or ee 





FO ee ne Cee et ae eee 


THE NEO-CHRISTIANS II5 


ing him in a history of French philosophies. He is a 
sort of backwater in the stream of events. Yet his 
ideas have a certain interest in themselves. They are a 
curious compromise between the Catholicism of Bonald 
and Maistre, leavened with the sentimentalism of Cha- 
teaubriand and Mme. de Stael, and the heresy of Lamen- 
nais which followed. They are interesting also as a 
fore-shadowing of modernism, for, as we shall see, 
Ballanche believed that Catholicism could evolve, that 
time and change were real and not necessarily evil. For 
some reason or other he was unable to think his ideas 
through, or did not choose to. His feelings carried him 
away from the rigor of Bonald ; he was always in danger 
of heterodoxy, and his life was so closely bound up with 
members of the Church that this loyal creature could 
not face the suicide a break would entail. Believing 
so strongly in the cognitive value of feelings that he 
headed one of the chapters of his first book, “ The 
study of precepts is not very important,” he could not 
very well forsake them when they prompted him to 
linger by the side of Mme. Récamier and the group of 
l’Abbaye-aux-Bois. She and her friends were Catholics, 
royalists, traditionalists. He too must be of them in 
spite of incompatibility of many of their ideas. He felt 
the need of this woman’s friendship. He wrote to her 
in 1815, apropos of his proposed residence in Paris, “I 
know the nature of my talents; they have no need ofa 
stay in the capital. Their entire existence is comprised 
of my affections and my feelings. Paris is no more 
necessary to my talents than to me. It is you and in no 


116. FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


wise Paris who are necessary to me.” The tempera- 
ment of Lamennais was tragically different. 

There was, to be sure, a certain fund of agreement 
between Ballanche and Bonald and Maistre. Like all 
good Churchmen he believed in the fall of man from a 
state of innocence and happiness to a state of wicked- 
ness and misery. With them he was ready to declare 
that this primitive state was not to be found in savage 
communities, for they are in a state of degeneration.~ 
He thinks that Rousseau on this subject speaks “ bril- 
liant absurdities.” ™ But, he held, if man has fallen, 
he can rehabilitate himself, and the law of rehabilita- 
tion is woven into the texture of the universe. The 
dogma of the fall and the law of rehabilitation are one 
and the same in his mind.” With Maistre again he 
believed that the French Revolution was a mystery 
arranged by God.” He believed that God ordained the 
death of Louis X VI as vicarious atonement for the sins 
of France.” But that does not imply, according to him, 
that government should be theocratic. He is gallican 
not ultramontane.” “If Greogory VII could have 
realized his great designs,” he said, “ Europe would 
have become the Orient. The princes of the time 


v1“ Souvenirs et correspondance de Mme. Récamier,” I 292. 

va“ Fssai sur les institutions sociales,’ Oeuvres, P. 1830. Il 
197; cf. 260. 

* “Palingénésie Sociale,” Oeuvres III 51. 

Pt Eds TLR 6) 7 

*° Cf. Frainnet 60. 

26“ Flégie du Duc de Berry.” Cf. Maistre’s “ Eclaircisse- 
ments sur les sacrifices,” ch. 111. 

=" “ Reflection diverses,” Oeuvres III 372. 





THE NEO-CHRISTIANS Li 


resisted and ought to have resisted.” He is furthermore 

sceptical about the value of the Jesuits, the teachers of 
Maistre.” He even believed in the separation of Church 
and State. “I was very consular,” he said to M. de 
Lomeénie, “but not at all imperial; I was glad to see 
the restoration of the Church, but I was afraid for her 
sake to see her reborn pompous as before and bound by 
gratitude to the State. I should have liked her better 
free to raise herself from her wooden cross without aid. 
The Consulate and the Church outside the State; there 


93 129 


was my ideal in politics and in religion. He wrote 
a book, “ L’Homme sans Nom,” depicting the anguish 
of a regicide’s repentance ; but his royalism was not that 
of the old régime ; it was that of the Charte.™ The peo- 
ple are not sovereign, he maintained ; their sovereignty 
is a “senseless dogma.” ™ But a government must be 
plastic enough to adjust itself to the aspirations of 
society.” Otherwise it will be deposed. 

These points of disagreement were dangerous and 
people were aware that they were dangerous. Well 
might their author have envied his friend, Jourdain, who 
had the peace and quiet of Holy Orders.” There 
doubts were impossible and calm assured. There friends 
could not torture one and tyrannize over one’s soul. 
Maistre was especially keensighted when it was a ques- 

——1d, 388. 

** Loménie; Op. cit. 16. 

* Frainnet 321. 

1 “Te Vieillard et le Jeune Homme,” Oeuvres IT 404. 


aid. Wid: 
* Frainnet 28 


118 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


tion of heresy, and though he thanked Ballanche for 
what was good in his work, the “ Essai sur les institu- 
tions sociales,” he called it a “ hybrid ” and added, “ The 
sans-culotte awaits you in his camp; I await you in 
mine.” “* Ballanche may be said to have retorted in his 
later remark that Maistre’s ideas were “ dreams of the 
cave of Trophonius.” “’ But he dared not desert the 
Maistrean camp. His “ Ville des Expiations ” was con- 
sidered so little orthodox, that the Comtesse de Haute- 
ville, who owned the manuscript, refused to allow it to 
be printed.“ How far Ballanche appreciated his heter- 
odoxy, we have no easy means of determining, though 
in the case of one detail in his system which seemed sus- 
picious, he was glad to find it anticipated, as he thought, 
in the Fathers.“” He would no doubt have been happier 
had be been sure that he was orthodox. 

On the whole Ballanche’s difference from Bonald and 
Maistre rests on his suspicion that time is ultimately 
real and that history is an actual process which absorbs 
all institutions, even religious ones. This was never 
more than a suspicion in his writings, never phrased in 
metaphysical terms, lying at the back of his reflection, 
irritating him, mystifying him, and giving to his work 
that obscurity which usually accompanies mysticism 
or careless workmanship. In Ballanche’s case it was 

** Sainte-Beuve; “ Poétes et Philosophes Modernes de la Fr.,” 
RDM 1834, III 703. 

* “ Palin. Soc.,” Oeuvres III 265. 


* Frainnet, Appendix III 351. 
™“ Palin. Soc.,” Oeuvres III 60. 


ee OO ate a ae ee ee Fe eT ee 








CU aad 


THE NEO-CHRISTIANS — II9Q 


not due to careless workmanship. M. Frannet notes the 
number of trial expressions which occur in the manu- 
scripts now at Lyon. He revised his publications with 
the greatest pains. His obscurity is the result in part 
of the comparative novelty of what was central in his 
thought and in part of his inability or unwillingness to 
force it to a logical conclusion. If he had carried it to 
a logical conclusion, he would have been carried along 
with it into open heresy as Lamennais was. 

That change and time are ultimately real was a 
thought which separated Ballanche from his friends. 
For Bonald and Maistre they were evil, for Ballanche 
they are all that permit us to achieve the good. For the 
former the permanent and the stable are the goal of all 
life; for the latter, as for Vico from whom he learned 
so much, the motionless is the brutal.“ That which 
elevates man above the beasts is his plasticity, for by it 
alone is he capable of perfecting himself. His perfecti- 
bility—a notion which he inherited from the eighteenth 
century, horribile dictu—was infinite, for its termination 
was the coincidence of humanity with the condition of 
Adam, man in actu and in potentia.™ “ At the end of 

#8 Frainnet 1109. 

189 Dalin. Soc.,”’ Oeuvres III 175. Ballanche had studied 
Vico while in Naples in 1824 with Mme. Récamier (“ Souvenirs 
etc.” I 232). For a statement in his published works of his 
relations to Vico, see “Palin. Soc.,” Oeuvres III 150. His 
similarity to Vico was noted during his lifetime by Adolphe 
Mazure; “ Ballanche,” La Fr. Littéraire 1834, XI 8. 

Vision d Hébal,’ P, 1831, pp. 31, 36: Cf. “Ville des 


Expiations—La Charité Chrétienne,” La Fr. Littéraire 1834, 
XII 6 and 1833, V 238. 


120 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


the world,” he said, “the world of substances will 
perish, the world of essences will continue to exist as 
before the phenomenal creation.” The similarity be- 
tween this theory and that of Plotinus, whom Ballanche 
does not seem to have known, is obvious. In Plotinus 
too the idea of man descends to earth, solely to rehabili- 
tate itself by ascending to heaven. It encounters evil 
voluntarily for its own perfection. But in Plotinus there 
was an individual idea for each man; whereas in Bal- 
lanche, as in the Neo-Platonists after Plotinus, there is 
one idea for the race. This was needed for Christian 
dogma, such as vicarious atonement and inherited guilt. 
The realization of this idea, which Ballanche calls “ re- 
habilitation,”’ is the process of history. 

This is the first of his potential heresies. In his eyes 
all men are called to rehabilitation, the bad as well as 
the good. If they have not time enough in this life, they 
will be born again, but sooner or later they will achieve 
that state which the first man enjoyed in the earthly 
paradise. This was his second potential heresy, In vain 
did he call upon Origen in support of his views; the 
Church did not believe in metempsychosis and could not. 
Origen himself had been condemned for the belief as 
early as 543 and along with him anyone who happened 
to agree with him.™ Similarly the Priscillian belief that 
human souls descended to earth because of sins com- 
mitted in a heavenly pre-existence was anathematized 
at the Council of Braga in 561. The Church has never 
retracted on these points and Ballanche would have had 


“ Enchiridion ” 203. 
er a 230, 





i 
. 


THE NEO-CHRISTIANS I2I 


no defence if he had been called to account. Fortunately 
for him, he was a layman. 

From his second potential heresy followed his third, 
that there was no eternal Hell.” How could there be 
if men were to be given an infinite series of chances to 
atone for the evils which they committed in life? Life, 
he believed, was Hell enough.“ To extend it unim- 
proved is irreconcilable with the goodness of God. He 
had every hope that the theologians would some day see 
the matter with his eyes.” For the Church to see it 
through his eyes, however, would be to reject the dogma 
of the Church’s immutability. But on this question 
Ballanche entertains the fourth potential heresy: the 
growth of religion. 

Being made for a temporal creature, Man, religion is 
subject to temporal laws; its truths are released like a 
news-story, like the “ Génie du Christianisme ” in fact, 
only when the public is ready for them. Thus God 
manifested the doctrine of immortality to the Christians 
and not to the Jews, for they were too carnal to under- 
stand it. But if the Jews lacked complete knowledge, 
was it not possible that they shared what they had with 
other primitive peoples? Was it not likely in fact that 
they were but one of several repositories of divine 
truth? It was, indeed, and no people had been without 
its share.“ “Truth necessary to the human race has 
always been and always will be in the human race.” 

“9 “ Orphée,” Oeuvres IV 303, 404. 

rid, 


“ “Palin. Soc.,” Oeuvres III 319. 
6 Td. 150, 335; “ Orphée,” Oeuvres IV 4109. 


I22 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


But Christianity itself, is it not at least free from 
change? One can almost feel the anxious heart-beats of 
Mme. Récamier as she listened for the answer to this 
question. The answer was definite if veiled. Christi- 
anity was but a symbol, a collection of symbols, to be 
interpreted not by the stupid literalness of the reason, 
but by the sympathy of the heart—one hears the voices 
of Chateaubriand and Mme. de Staél.™ But at least 
there is a body of men who alone have the power and 
authority to interpret them, the priests? No, says the 
terrible meek, Ballanche, not so. “‘ My son, we are 
Christians, but we know and we avow that Christianity 
has produced a sort of paganism which enlightened 
spirits put farthest from their thoughts. Pure Christ1- 
anity, true Christianity is for the people of to-day what 
initiation was for the people of olden times. The unbe- 
lievers of to-day have refused to initiate themselves ; 
the true initiation is ever within.”** There was no 
mistaking this final heresy. It was personal interpre- 
tation; it was what Bonald and Maistre called Protes- 
tantism. 

This heresy was inevitable. For Ballanche like Cha- 
teaubriand was a Christian from sentiment and not from 


“7 This is but an extension of his earlier theory that art 
should also be interpreted by the heart, as expounded in his 
“Du Sentiment,” p. 7. Later in the same work, p. 46, he 
demonstrates how much surer a guide the feelings are than the 
reason. “In vain is man convinced by the reason; if he is not 
persuaded by feeling, a good thought will never become a good 
deed” (p. 48). He quotes Adam Smith in defence of this 
theory (p. 245). 

“se Ville,” La Fr. Lattératre 1833, V 24t. 


ge ee SR op eee, Lee 





—— & 


THE NEO-CHRISTIANS 123 


reason, His feelings alone carried him along; he appre- 
ciated the beauty of Christianity much more than its 
truth. Like Chateaubriand, he believed in its civilizing 
force, a help for the weak, an enlightenment for the 
ignorant, above all an inspiration for the arts, replacing 
paganism, But he did not see in it an apology for 
authority and a substitute for the intellectual autonomy 
of the individual. This man who spent his whole life at 
the beck and call of another, taught a philosophy in 
which the basis of all knowledge was in the individual 
alone. 

The individualism was softened and the heresy toned 
down in the setting of traditionalism. Like Bonald and 
Maistre and the earlier Lamennais, he believed in the 
divine origin of language and the sacredness of insti- 
tutions.” But he never went to the extent of Lamennais 
in making tradition the sole organ of truth. As was to 
be expected, tradition became in his hands, like religion 
itself, a growing developing thing, instead of a fixed 
thing, semper eadem. He became one of the pioneers in 
a movement towards realizing the optimistic faith of 
those believers in progress who had been preaching 
since the seventeenth century. To him Maistre was a 
backward-looker, an archéophile. “This great man,” 

“ “Tnstit. Soc.,” Oeuvres II 199. For an excellent account 
of the differences between him and Bonald and Maistre, see 
Barchou; “ Essai d’une formule générale de l’humanité d’aprés 
les idées de M. Ballanche,” RDM 1831, II 424. Cf. Ferraz; Op. 
cit, 275. Barchou calls B. a mediator between Maistre and 


Rousseau, between “divine right and the sovereignty of the 
people” (p. 425). 


I24 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


he said,” “ this noble theosopher . . . had ears for the 
voice of by-gone centuries alone ; his soul was in sympa- 
thy only with the society of olden times. He knew not 
how to distinguish the cry of the future so perfectly 
articulated; he had no glimpse of new destinies; the 
people could not understand him, for he had ceased to 
speak their language.”’ He himself was a néophile. Yet 
he seemed to be defending the same creed as Maistre. 
Was he not nearer the camp of the sans-culottes than 
anyone suspected ? | 

As he preached to his group of laborers his simple 
faith in brotherly love, he probably achieved more than 
at any other time the goal which life had in store for 
him, but which he rejected. The undercurrents of his 
soul have never been sounded, but one cannot resist the 
impression that he wilfully prevented himself from 
completely expressing his thoughts because of the social 
tragedy which would ensue. True to his friend of 
friends, he was untrue to himself, and what joy he gave 
to her and the narrow circle which moved about her, 
was more than balanced by the sorrow of his own inner 
life. Again, as in Chateaubriand, the romantic melan- 
choly which colored his utterance was no pose assumed 
for the fun of being romantic; it was the natural out- 
growth of a definite seed. 

It remained for Lamennais to bring out of this seed 
all of its possibilities. 


*® Oeuvres III 265. 





THE NEO-CHRISTIANS 125 


IV 


The heresies of Ballanche were heresies in root. The 
heresies of Lamennais were heresies in flower. The 
former started from assumptions which were contrary 
to the teachings of the Church. The latter started from 
assumptions which seemed to him and to his group to 
be the inner essence of Church dogma. He took the 
dogma seriously and treated it logically. The others 
knew where to stop. 

By Ballanche’s time the counter-revolution had gone 
through its youth and maturity and was showing a 
startling incapacity for settling down in its old age. 
The help it had received from Bonald and Maistre had 
been welcome enough and was salutary. But there was 
a grain of unwholesome matter there. That grain was 
the theory of tradition. The help it had received from 
Chateaubriand was downright noxious. Like a strong 
stimulant it had set the movement on its feet, but it did 
not provide the necessary nutriment to keep it there. 
On the contrary it engendered the dangerous habit en- 
gendered by all stimulants of relying on it as a perman- 
ent rather than a temporary aid. Add to this the well- 
meant help of Ballanche and you will see why Lamen- 
nais’s brand of Christianity went the way of the wicked. 
A movement which had begun in orthodoxy ended in 
heresy. One of the strongest supporters of the Church 
found himself cast adrift for his pains. Perhaps it was 
just as well that Ballanche confined his activities to 
l Abbaye-aux-Bois. 


126 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


The traditional way of treating Lamennais is to 
divide his career into two parts, the first of which is 
orthodox and ultramontane, the second heterodox and 
anarchistic. There is a certain justice in this, for every- 
one knows the contrast between the brilliant beginning 
of his life under the zgis of the Church and the 
wretched end. Everyone knows that the Abbé Félicité 
de la Mennais was the most intense spokesman for 
the supremacy of the Pope in all matters, temporal as 
well as spiritual,” that Leo XII received him with as 
affectionate tenderness as Pius VII had shown to 
Chateaubriand, that there was even talk of giving him 
the red hat.” And everyone knows that F. Lamennais, 
author of ‘‘ Une Voix de Prison” and “Le Livre du 
Peuple”’ went to his grave having specified that his 
body be presented to no church for funeral rites. He 
had become an anarchist and an internationalist. 

Why should the tradition not be respected? 

Because Lamennais was but developing the logical 
implications of his original point of view, taking his 
traditionalism and his ultramontanism seriously. He 
was determined that nothing should stand in the way of 
realizing their entire consequences. He himself was far 
from believing in a complete break with the past. He rec- 


ognized his mistakes, his grave mistakes,” his haste in 


“1 Cf. my apparently exaggerated statement with Ferraz 
(Op. cit. 268) which holds that before Lamennais the ultra- 
montane party was “not yet constituted and had not even the 
shadow of existence.” 

* Spuller ; “ Lamennais,” P. 1892, p. 123. 

*8 See preface to the collection of articles from Le Mémorial 
Catholique and L’ Avenir, OC, P. 1836-1837, X vi. 





ee ee ie eee nes ee Ree re ee ee ee 


=. . 


THE NEO-CHRISTIANS 127 


combating for Rome, for instance,” and his extreme 
ultramontanism,” but never his fundamental point of 
view.” That point of view was that the sole test of 
certitude lay not in the reason of the individual, but 
in the reason of the race. This he contrasted first with 
rationalistic individualism, which teaches that the in- 
dividual’s reason is eminently fitted to perceive the 
truth without aid. He thought that this would destroy 
truth’s unity, since there is so much disagreement be- 
tween individuals. He contrasted it second with a mys- 
ticism like Pascal’s. His emphasis upon a social basis 
of intellectual values colors all of his thinking, gives 
it its fundamental unity, and produces its growth, “ If 
we are not mistaken,” he said in 1838,” “ each of our 
works marks some progress made along the road on 
which we are marching to-day.” It is that progress 
which we shall try to show here, for it seems to us the 
legitimate conclusion of the Catholic movement begun 
by Bonald and Maistre and propelled by Chateaubriand. 

The first of Lamennais’s works was his “ Essai sur 
l’indifférence en matiére de religion.” Taking his in- 
spiration from Bonald and Maistre, he preached that 
religion was vitally necessary to society and that society 
was vitally necessary to man. Without his social rela- 
tions man would be reduced to a mere point, a nothing.” 
This is the germ of his later theory of solidarity. With- 

Ot x xvi. 

* OC X iiii. 

*° OC X viii and xi. 


ptt a Ixt: 
Bre hessai” OC Il v. 


128 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


out its religious leaven, society would be dead, an inert 
mass. For the aim of society is civilization, Civiliza- 
tion comes only in order, for in order alone is there 
rest.’ But where shall we find a force which orders, 
which unifies, which harmonizes? Only in the force 
which draws individuals to God. For that alone is a 
force which is truly social in the sense that it is over- 
individual. Such forces as that of the social contract, 
the doctrine of which is “absurd, deadly, degrad- 
ing,” “ rest upon the ultimate rights of the individual, 
which means disintegration of the social organism. 
Such a doctrine is Protestant, not Catholic, which is 
enough to condemn it." For by shifting the emphasis 
from the group to the individual, it destroys society.™ 
Society then simply exists at the arbitrary coincidence 
of individual desires. But that, of course, is the ruina- 
tion of society and with society gone, what becomes 
of the individual? He, too, is ultimately lost. 

It is to be noticed that when Lamennais speaks of 
society, he is not thinking of France. He is not like 
Maistre who scorned the medieval realism of those who 
assert that Mankind exists. “‘I see Frenchmen, Ital- 
ians, Germans,” said Maistre, “I do not see Man.” 
Lamennais was more consistent than Maistre, or more 
naif, perhaps both, and to him the problem of life was 
the problem of the relation of Man and God. Hence 

GOOG 1 aes. 

riddle GG ik ieee 


A Ld SOO Wi dige 1204: 
La OOM 287. 


eg _ 


ot 


THE NEO-CHRISTIANS 129 


the immediate social order had no inherent merit in 
his eyes, except insofar as it furthered the plans of 
God. To his predecessors, it was a realization of the 
plans of God. In his zeal Lamennais applauded the 
revolt of the Poles against the schismatic Tzar, and 
then wondered why the Pope censured him for approv- 
ing of revolution. So too he lampooned the weak-kneed 
monarchy which dared to compromise with Revolution, 
which dallied with Gallicanism and other worldly move- 
ments. To him the legitimate dynasty was restored not 
for political but for religious ends, to bring France back 
to the Christian life. But there is no evidence that he 
was ever in secret correspondence with Louis XVIII 
and his nobility was of too recent a date to prompt him 
to jealousy of his family’s prerogatives. 

The religion which above all others unites men in 
society, says Lamennais,”” and thus perfects them, is 
Catholicism. Catholicism alone is real religion; the 
schismatic and protestant sects are imitations, so to 
speak. Quoting Maistre’s “ Du Pape,” he tries to show 
that Protestantism, by appealing to individual interpre- 
tation, makes the Scriptures no single body of doctrine 
and hence disintegrates authority. Where then is its 
unifying power? No, Catholicism alone focusses the 
acts of men on a goal which is beyond men, bends their 
wills to a power which is above their wills, draws their 
hearts to a love which is outside their hearts. It is a 
religion, one might say, of humanity, not a sect of in- 
dividual men. 


fod, rer. 10-20 -pt:, OC Il xix. 
IO 


I30 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


Its substantiation will be found not in the reason of 
any one man, but in the reason of the race as a whole. 
Which is better, asks Lamennais,™ to say, “I believe 
in myself,” or, ‘‘I believe in mankind’? In the case 
of conflict between my ideas and those of man as a 
whole, which ought to prevail? Even the Pagans be- 
lieved in the consensus gentsum. Before that the in- 
dividual reason must give way. “Common consent, 
sensus communis, is for us the seal of truth; there is 
no other.” This anti-rationalism holds good even in 
science.” 

The impotency of the reason was a doctrine which, 
one might think, would have served the Church in good 
stead. It permitted a belief in miracles and unsubstan- 
tiated dogma; it subordinated man before a higher 
power. But the Church has never been willing to ad- 
mit it as a principle and Lamennais was going to find 
his defence of faith, which was meant to be a help 
to the Church, thrown back at him with repulsion and 
indignation. 

The reason of the race must give itself voice and 
it was not difficult for Lamennais, with Bonald and 
Maistre behind him, to hear that voice in tradition. 
Tradition, however, must be shown to be homogeneous, 
and since Lamennais means religious tradition above 
all, his next step was to show the harmony between all 
religions.” He even goes so far as to say,” 

198 « Wissai,” avertissement to 4th ed., OC II] -1xxxii. 

et RSSai VO Guten. 

A OC Toe nat 


+? Td.,.ch, xxiti and xxiv) {OC Th a@2aig 
gt CL ONSN A Bees 





THE NEO-CHRISTIANS 131 


“We should now be able to observe how idolatory 
by subjecting man to his senses, fixing his mind on 
material objects, arrests the development of his intelli- 
gence and forms an invincible obstacle to the perfecting 
of society. But these considerations would lead us too 
far afield. It is enough to have shown that all which 
is universal in idolatry is true, and founded on a tra- 
dition which goes back to the origins of mankind; that 
insofar as idolatry is false, it lacks and always has 
lacked essential characters of true religion, unity, per- 
petuity, holiness.” 

Non-Catholic religions are true only insofar as they 
agree with Catholicism, for it was understood, as we 
have said, that “ Catholicism ” was equivalent to “ re- 
ligion.” But this equivalence could never be demon- 
strated either by the reason or by the feelings; it will 
be revealed only by submission to authority, which is 
the testimony of God Himself, “ reason universal, im- 
mutable, infinite.” Its proof, though Lamennais does 
not say so in so many words, would be its refutation. 
Refuse credence to authority and sectarianism sets in. 
With sectarianism comes individualism; with individ- 
ualism, anarchy; with anarchy, the death of society; 
with the death of society, the annihilation of the in- 
dividual. In other words, authority on religious mat- 
ters is a social need, the satisfaction of which is justified 
in the perfection of the individua This authority is 
to be found lodged in the Catholic Church alone.” 


] 169 


ap arssas OC IT 193; 
Rie. OC Il 195. 
-ig..OC Il 203. 


132 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


But that charges the Church with the development of 
humanity and the perfection of the godlike in man. It 
was not a charge which the Church was willing or able, 
unfortunately, to undertake. Lamennais, however, did 
not understand this. He thought that since Popes were 
God on earth, or what amounted to the same thing, 
they could do anything they chose. Their sovereignty, 
their right to exact obedience, was simply their indepen- 
dence, their self-dependence.™ What God wanted, it 
seemed obvious, was that Man, His image, should be 
kept in line with the divine pattern after which he was 
made. How was it possible that Popes should wish 
otherwise? To him, in those early days, the idea that 
Popes are human with no clearer vision than their 
psychophysical organism provides would have been hor- 
rible. They are Christ’s vicars; they are the ruling 
power in the Church Invisible as well as in the Church 
Visible, With their peculiar supernatural means of ac- 
quiring peculiar supernatural information, there was 
only one possible course of action open to them, the 
fulfillment of God’s will. When Lamennais found that 
they were not fulfilling it—as he understood it—only 
two courses of action were open to him: either to con- 
clude that he misunderstood God’s will, or that they 
did. To have followed the former course would have 
been to be a good priest. To have followed the latter 
was to be very human. But for Lamennais it was more. 
It was to do what philosophers and Protestants had 


*7 Pref. to articles from L’Avenir, OC X lvi. 


THE NEO-CHRISTIANS 133 


been doing: to rely on the reason rather than on 
tradition.” 

Lamennais was ultramontane to such a degree that 
he was more Catholic than the Pope. But the mountains 
beyond which his ruler lived were not of this earth and 
the Pope could not understand such ultramontanism. 

After a period of years stretching from 1808, when 
his “ Reflexions sur l'état de l’église en France pendant 
le dix-huitieme siecle et sur sa situation actuelle” was 
seized by the Imperial censor, to 1830, he devoted his 
life to the warm defence and elucidation of this doc- 
trine and to its propagation among the young men of 
France. At his home in Brittany he began the work of 
that society which included among its members Rohrs- 
bacher, Gerbet, Montalembert, Lacordaire, and later 
Maurice de Guérin. Bit by bit his thought matured that 
Catholicism was the one force needed to bind men into 
that salutary unity which was brotherly love and in- 


*2 See the conclusion to his “Défense de I’Essai sur I’Indiffér- 
ence;” “In order that one may sharply conceive how our first 
principles differ from that of philosophy, we shall reduce both 
to their simplest expression. 

“First principle from which we start: That which all men 
believe to be true is true. 

“First principle of philosophy: That which the reason of 
each man perceives clearly and distinctly is true.” (L.’s italics) 

Yet he said later in his own defense, “ We had obeyed our 
conscience when we spoke, and they were offended by it.” 
(“ Affaires de Rome,” concl., OC XII 276). Tradition might 
have shown him that obedience to conscience is no excuse for 
disobedience to Popes. 


134 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


dividual perfection. To him the Church was still as per- 
secuted as it had been under Napoleon or under the 
Directory. “ We ask,” he said in 1829, while Charles X 
was still on the throne,” “we ask for the Catholic 
Church the liberty promised by the Charte to all re- 
ligions, the liberty which is enjoyed by Protestants and 
Jews, and which would be enjoyed by the votaries of 
Mohammed and of Buddha if there were any in France. 
... We ask for liberty of conscience, liberty of 
the press, liberty of education, which is what the Bel- 
gian Catholics ask for, like us oppressed by a persecuting 
government. . . . It is not a question here of political 
quarrels, of systems of administration, it is a question 
of that which one cannot without crime steal from any 
man whatsoever, and it is time that Catholics know 
whether it is intended to put them beyond the law com- 
mon to all and to reduce them to a state of slavery, 
the equal of which has never existed in the world.” All 
this indignation and extravagance was over the ordi- 
nances of 1828. The Globe, the philosophic paper of the 
time which we shall meet again in our studies, joined 
the Catholics in their protests. The Church, thought 
Lamennais, by submitting to the articles of 1682, was 
submitting to claims put upon it by a non-religious 
power; it was debasing its sovereignty before a force 
which in the nature of things was baser than it. Only 
a stronger force could save it and saved it must be in 


*® Pref. to “Des Progrés de la Rév. et de la Guerre contre 
lEglise,” OC IX viii. 


THE NEO-CHRISTIANS 135 


spite of itself. L’Avenir and “1’Agence génerale pour 
la défense de la liberté religieuse ” were the result.™ 

That religion existed for the sake of humanity had 
been one of the earliest thoughts of Lamennais. That 
its truths were substantiated by the common reason of 
humanity alone was coeval. Why then was it unnatural 
that he should have defended the cause of the Church— 
which to him was alone truly religious—simultaneously 
with that of the People? The cause of God and Liberty 
were one and inseparable. He said in 1836-1837, look- 
ing back on these events, that the only end which 
L’Avenw entertained was the double purpose of pre- 
serving Catholicism from the evils which menaced it 
and, by uniting it to liberty, to prepare for liberty’s en- 
during and peaceful triumph.” Christianity was for 
him “the highest expression of truth and love.” He 
felt authorized to develop truth by educating human 
intelligence and love by improving the condition of 
mankind. 

The doctrines of L’Avenir were briefly summed up 
as follows in the issue of December 7, 1830. They in- 


™ T’ Agence existed for the following end: 

1. The annulment of every act against liberty of the clergy, 
by suits in courts, propaganda, etc. 

2. The support of every establishment of instruction against 
all acts prejudicial to liberty of teaching. 

3. The maintenance of the right of association for prayer, 
study, charity, etc. 

4. The unification of local organizations into larger associ- 
ations to repel all acts of “tyranny hostile to religious liberty.” 
(“ Affaires de Rome,” OC XII 74.) 

5 See OC X 1Ixxx and xcii. 

*° OC X 196; cf. “ Affaires,’ OC XII 26. 


136 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


cluded first, an absolute belief in the unity of the 
Church—thus excluding Gallicanism ; second, a convic- 
tion that legitimacy of rule is based on justice or moral 
law, which excluded the dynastic principle.™ But a gov- 
ernment which violates its charters is not a just govern- 
ment, whereas a government which violates its charters 
in the opinion of a Bonald and a Maistre is simply free- 
ing itself from a repressive and illegitimate burden. 
These two points of doctrine were enough to cause 
trouble. For however ultramontane the Pope might con- 
ceivably be, the bishops of France were largely Gal- 
lican. To them Lamennais and his sheet could be merely 
trouble-makers, Again liberty of conscience in France 
meant liberty of conscience for the minority, because 
the minority did not happen to have consciences which 
told them that they owed allegiance to what the hair- 
raising phrase of the time called “a foreign sovereign.” 
But this was precisely what the conscience of the Men- 
naisians commanded. 

The specific platform of L’Avenir contained the fol- 
lowing planks: (1) total separation of Church and 
State—involving in Lamennais’s mind the suppression 
of the ecclesiastical budget; (2) freedom of instruc- 
tion—involving the repudiation of the ‘‘ monopole uni- 
versitaire”’; (3) freedom of the press; (4) freedom 
of association; (5) extension of the suffrage; (6) de- 
centralization—the permission for the communes and 


*" Curiously enough this is not unlike Benjamin Constant’s 
theory of sovereignty, which was being formulated at about 
the same time. See Duguit; “The Law and the State,” Harv. 
Law R., Nov. 1917, XXXI 111. 


THE NEO-CHRISTIANS Baz, 


provinces to organize their own administration, in other 
words, political regionalism.” One need not read an- 
other word to see why Gregory XVI, a Pharaoh who 
knew not Joseph, would condemn these planks and order 
the platform demolished. But when one considers that 
in the “ Affaires de Rome”*™” Lamennais said that 
L’ Avenir was urging the Papacy to recognize that noth- 
ing was stationary in the world and that the time had 
come for kings to go and for the people to rule them- 
selves, one can see why the Pope trembled with horror. 
The interests of Gregory were as temporal as they were 
spiritual. The Papal States had need of French and 
Austrian armies if they were to be kept in order. Fur- 
thermore the Church was constructed on monarchical 
principles and could not tolerate this emphasis on free- 
dom, liberty, rights. To be sure, freedom of conscience 
was a thing which might have been condoned, but why 
should Protestants and Jews enjoy it to breed more — 
Protestants and Jews? No, even freedom of conscience 
would do the Church no good; she wanted and needed 
special privileges. This idealism, she thought, was all 
very well, but it would not do in a practical world. 
Sometimes it is necessary to compromise, 

Lamennais could not understand compromise. This 
man who proved so brilliantly the inefficacy of the reason 
could not but act as if the law of contradiction guided 
our lives as well as our syllogisms. The encyclical “ Mi- 
rari Vos” decided the death penalty for the “ Agence ” 
and for L’Avenir. It called the belief in liberty of 


-—OG X 190. 
OC XII 26. 


138 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


‘6 


conscience an “ absurd and erroneous opinion” which 
flowed from “this stinking fount of indifferentism ” 
(ex hoc putidissimo indifferentismi fonte) and wonders 
at the “ supreme impudence ” of some who think that 
any good could come to religion from that source.” 
It called liberty of the press “ detestable and impossible 
to execrate sufficiently.” “We shudder with horror 
(perhorrescimus), venerable brothers, to see with what 
monstrous doctrines, or rather with portentous errors 
we are crushed,” wrote the Pope, and noted again the 
impudence of.those who think that the one good book 
which might result from freedom of the press would 
atone for the host of bad ones which would inevitably 
ensue.” He looked back to the time when bad books 
were burned and to the creation of the Index with ap- 
proval."” He pointed to the testimony of Saint August- 
ine (In Psalm. CXXIV, n. 7), of Saint Eucherius 
(Apud Ruinart. Act. SS:MM. de SS. Murit. et Soc. 
n. 4), of Tertullian (Apolog. cap. XX XVII) to prove 
that good Christians submit even to bad rulers. That 
removed the plank of the separation of Church and 
State, which was constructed by “lovers of a most 


shameless freedom.” ** Lamennais and his followers 


* OC XII 336; Enchiridion 7) 700% 

*2 OC XII 338; “ Enchiridion” 1614. 

TOC LLYeaG, 

*8 OC XII 348; “ Enchiridion ” 1615. Cardinal Pacca, trans- 
mitting the encyclical to L., said that what displeased His 
Holiness the most was that the editors of L’ Avenir had been 
presumptuous enough to settle points in public which it was 
the prerogative of Rome to settle; that they had taught civil 
and political liberty (the word “civil” in italics); that any 





THE NEO-CHRISTIANS 139 


saw the impossibility of going on, and on the tenth of 
September 1832 signed their submission to the Church. 
The Pope signified his joy in a letter to the Archbishop 
of Toulouse the following May, but added that he was 
disturbed by certain rumors in the air.™ These rumors, 
which Lamennais said were a trap set by his enemies 
who hoped he would be tempted into breaking his si- 
lence,” he interpreted as the news that “L’Agence” 
was about to begin again or had not ceased to exist. He 
wrote to Gregory to that effect. As Gregory had not 
been so specific as Lamennais, he could note with sorrow 
the testimony of a guilty conscience, and in October he 
expressed his grief to the Bishop of Rennes, basing his 
direct charges of Lamennais’s faithlessness on a letter 
supposed to have been published by him in the Journal 
de la Haye three months before the letter to the Arch- 
bishop of Toulouse had been composed. This letter, 
said the Pope, was next to the last straw. But Lamennais 
said that he looked for it in the Journal de la Haye and 
failed to find it.” The last straw was the “ Polish Pil- 
grim,” a book plenum temeritatis ac malitiae, which 
showed conclusively that Lamennais’s submission was 


not sincere.’ The only gesture left for Lamennais to 


Catholic should have taught liberty of worship and of the press. 
But the worst (ce qui a mis le comble a ’ameriume du Saint- 
Pére) was proposing to unite Catholics with liberals (OC XII 
131). L. held that “ Christianity and liberty, inseparably united 
in their common root, are the necessary conditions of one 
another ” (Pref., OC X Ixiii). 

* OC XII 358. 

OL XLT 137. 

#6 OC XII 368 n. 1. 

mC XII 368. 


I40 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


make was the signature of his complete submission to 
the doctrines of the Pope’s encyclical “ Mirari Vos.” 
This was done ™ for the sake of peace, for Lamennais 
said that he appreciated his having signed the opinion 
that the Pope was God. The “ bowels of paternal char- 
ity ” were dilated for the repentant priest.” But within 
a half year an encyclical had been sent forth condemning 
a work which Lamennais said had been written a year 
earlier than its publication,” the “ Paroles d’un Croy- 
ant.” In this book, said the Pope, “ by an impious misuse 
of the Word of God, the people are corrupted into 
breaking the chains of the whole public order, into 
weakening authority (of Church and State), into ex- 
citing, encouraging, and strengthening sedition in the 
realm, tumults and rebellions; this book therefor, which 
contains propositions respectively false, full of calumny, 
rash, leading to anarchy, contrary to the Word of God, 
impious, scandalous, erroneous, already condemned by 
the Church, in the case of the Waldenses, Wicliffites, 
Hussites, and other heretics of that kind, do we reprove, 


condemn, and wish and decree that it shall be held as 


99 191 


reproved and condemned in perpetuity. 
The “ Paroles d’un Croyant ” were Lamennais’s defi- 
nite break with the Church. In it he held to every main 


OC MAL azn tOom 1 

OG RTE are 

OG aL ages 

* “ Singulari Nos,’ OC XII 394; “Enchiridion” 1617, in 
part. L. in excuse of “Les Paroles” said in a letter to the 
Archbishop of Paris that it was a work of “philosophy, 
science, and politics only, not of religion.” (OC XII 172). 


Sal aa 


THE NEO-CHRISTIANS I4I 


doctrine of his earlier days but one—the authority of 
the Pope. It was a manifesto of one who believed that 
there was and should be no intermediary between God 
and His people. Humanity was still the darling of re- 
ligion ; religion was still Christianity ; Christianity was 
still Catholicism—minus the hierarchy. This book was 
the forerunner of “ Le Livre du Petiple ” (1837), “ Am- 
schaspands et Darvands” (1843) and “ Une Voix de 
Prison.” There is a community of ideas in all three and 
we shall take them up together. 

True religion is one, he held, exactly as he had held 
in the “ Essai sur l’indifférence.” It must not however 
be confused with the form it assumes, for the form is 
multiple and, as Ballanche had pointed out, it came into 
being and passed away. But truer religion, which is 
Christianity, is the bond between God and Man and is 
eternal. It alone of all the soi disant religions has pro- 
gressively abolished slavery—this was written in 1837— 
and serfdom, and encouraged the spread of gentleness 
of manners and laws and of equity, hitherto unknown. 
In a word, to it are to be traced all the benefits which 
we enjoy above the Ancients and above the non-Christ- 
ian peoples. If ills are mingled with these goods, it is 
not because of their inherent presence in religion, but 
because of the misinterpretation which men have made 
of religion.” 

Lamennais here is obviously contradicting his tra- 
ditionalism. In his last work, the “ Esquisse de Philo- 
sophie,” he still maintained that universal reason is more 


™ <“Tivre du Peuple” xiv. 


I42 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


reliable than individual, but surely if Christianity can 
be misinterpreted in its sectarian manifestations, tra- 
dition can be wrong. As in his own life he had acted as 
an individualist and a rationalist, so in his book he in- 
cludes certain statements which are perhaps involuntary 
admission of the truths of individualism and rational- 
ism. Thus he talks like Rousseau in the “Livre du 
Peuple,” ® when he says that human ills come from the 
vices of society, which has been turned from its natural 
end by the selfishness of a few. And again, when he 
says that Nature by herself is decent, implying that 
the touch of Man makes her corrupt. The plants, for 
instance, do not steal one another’s sap nor poison one 
another’s perfume.” The dove is faithful to its mate 
and unlike man does not break its marriage vows.” 
The eagle, the chamois, the insect on the grass, the bird, 
all are free; only the poor are hounded.” “Qui me 
ett dit, 0 mon Dieu, que je pleurerois d’étre homme! ” 
But society, he had said, is the vessel of truth, and it 
is next to impossible to reconcile this with his harsh 
criticism of society as it exists. 

Society, as it should exist, is more easily understood. 
The eighteenth century is present in his belief that man- 


*% oti, ed. Garnier, P. 1864. Cf. Morley’s “ Rousseau,” 
Lond. 1886, II 228; Gibson; “ The Abbé de Lamennais and the 
Liberal Catholic Movement in Fr.,” Lond. 1806, p. 55. Their 
similarity was remarked by Damiron in 1828—before Lamen- 
nais’s break with the Church, Op. cit. 131. Lamartine noticed a 
similarity between their styles in 1818, after reading the 
“Essai’’—see Maréchal; “L. and Lamartine,” p. 60. 

Pe LAvre KL a Boy 

#5 Td. xii 140. 

6 “ Voix de Prison” xv 207. 





THE NEO-CHRISTIANS 143 


kind has certain rights. The right to life is inalien- 
able; it is the right of every man to develop himself 
according to the laws of his being. The right to liberty 
is equally inalienable” and is implied in the right to 
life. For to develop is to choose and to choose wisely 
is to choose without human compulsion. But it is not 
to choose without law or divine compulsion, and man is 
never free from his real master, God.” The Christian 
theocratic element now appears. Lamennais speaks like 
a Calvinist as he emphasizes the correlation of duties 
and rights. Rights are individual things; they center 
about the self; but Lamennais has not forgotten his 
old teaching that men isolated from one another vanish 
into thin air. The moral instrument for lifting men out 
of themselves and binding them to one another, is duty. 
Rights have as an aim the good of the individual ; duties 
the good of all. And since society is nobler to his mind 
than the individuals who compose it, though it exists 
for their sake, duties are—if anything—more noble 
than rights. For in doing one’s duty, one achieves one’s 
rights.” From this there follow just two command- 
ments, which Lamennais thinks contain the substance 
of justice and charity, (a) respect the life, liberty, and 
property of others; (b) help others to conserve and 
develop their lives, liberty, and property.” Victor Cou- 
sin, the philosophic apologist of the Bourgeois Mon- 

7 Lavre”™ vy Lid: 

e 10.- 416. 

cr hd. 137. 


200 Td., “ Au lecteur,” 93; iv III; 1x 130. 
™ Id. xi 139. 


144 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


archy, was preaching about the same thing as this an- 
archist in his little tract, “ Justice et Charité.” 

This ethics is essentially theocratic, It is because God 
made Man in His own image that Man must be free. 
Liberty is the heart and soul of Christianity, he holds— 
the motto of L’Avenir was “ Dieu et liberté ’—and 
in the famous section of the “ Paroles d’un Croyant ” 
where the seven crowned men plot the enslavement of 
the human race, he makes the leader cry, “ Cursed be 
Christ, who has brought Liberty upon earth.” To rid 
themselves of liberty, they decide to abolish religion, 
science, and thought ; to strengthen national boundaries, 
local pride, fear, and luxury which produces cowardice. 
Liberty is the gift of God, servitude of Satan. It is 
the only way of serving God, of uniting man into a 
community of loyal and religious service.” This con- 
stant harping upon the delights of liberty and its neces- 
sity for the existence of true religion was enough to 
upset Rome, no matter what other tune accompanied it. 

But liberty would be useless without solidarity, for 
liberty alone might make the strong. triumph over the 
weak. Accordingly God has commanded brotherly 
love.™ All men are equal before Him, although their 
physical and mental abilities are not equal. Lamennais 
insists that superiority of gifts is no excuse for domi- 
nation; there is no divine right of rule.” Every man 
is morally autonomous; there is no sympathy ex- 

2 OC XI 48. 

me Paroles xix, XXXEx, xh, 

4 Td. vii; “ Livre” xi. 


mm “Livre 7c ivid 122: 
me Fd. go3) 





THE NEO-CHRISTIANS 145 


pressed for non-moral considerations of man. Man as 
an economic being, however, does not enjoy equality 
and perhaps cannot. Lamennais suggests that social in- 
stability destroys the equality of fortune and, as an 
amelioration of present social evil, suggests the ‘‘ abo- 
lition of the laws of privilege and monopoly; the dif- 
fusion of capital which is multiplied by credit, or the 
rendering of the instruments of production accessible 
to all.” ™ The affiliations of this theory are obvious. 
Solidarity, which is the “ fraternity ” of the Revolu- 
tionists, moves mountains, is alone of sufficient strength 
to exterminate the evils which man encounters on his 
journey through life.™ Such solidarity is recognized 
to be international, for as the bonds of the family are 
transcended by social duty, so are those of the state. 
“ Votre patrie,” cries Lamennais,” “ c’est le ciel.” Thus 
the exile is no worse off than anyone else.” God in 
His justice has united men into families, and families 
into nations, and all nations are sisters. “ He who di- 
vides nations from nations, divides what God has joined ; 
he is doing the work of Satan.” This solidarity of 
peoples, or internationalism, is simply again a recog- 
nition that life is an affair between Man and God, which, 
as we have tried to make clear, was Lamennais’s idea in 
his most Catholic days. It is the most extreme form of 
ultramontanism. It is absolute theocracy. 


1“ Tivre” xvi 164. 

ae S Paroles ivi; “Livre”: 94, vi 119. 
0 “ Paroles” xviii, OC XI 67. 

10 Td. xli; but see “Livre” xiii. 


II 


146 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


If national barriers are to break down, the duties of 
an individual to his political superior are minimized. 
Lamennais becomes, consistently enough, anti-militar- 
istic, for military duty is duty to two idols, Fidelity and 
Honor, which Czsar uses to draw men away from 
God.” Similarly he urges rebellion, without hate but 
with grim determination.” He is, in fact, an anarchist 
as much as he is anything definite. The people, he main- 
tains, do not need to be led; they are capable of self- 
leadership; they are not the herd to which they have 
been compared; they are intelligent human beings of 
unequal gifts but of equal importance in the eyes of 
God, Lamennais’s love of the poor is equalled only 
by his hatred of their rulers. He has written nobly of 
their lot and of their beauty of soul. The obvious rela- 
tion between their poverty and that of Jesus has sel- 
dom failed to move men of a Franciscan turn of mind 
and Lamennais is at his best when he is praying for 
them.™ They are the weak and the oppressed and it 
is for them that the heart of God is beating; they are 
His chosen.” They are the laborers, the fishermen, the 
soldiers, the artists, the scientists, the mass of society, 
and they are held in the hands of the privileged few.™ 
They have become their property ; and the few who own 
them, own them because they have broken the bonds 


213 


"11 Paroles”” xxxy; OC Xi ae 

Id. xii, OC XI 44; xxxvi, OCG Xi is73n Lave a ee 
Lecteur” 95. 

*% “Paroles” xxii)/\OC | X1i845" aye vin 

214 « Voix ” ii 

*°“ Paroles xxvii, OC XI 102. 

216 66 Livre ” ii 





THE NEO-CHRISTIANS 147 


of fraternity, have forsaken duty for rights, society 
for self.™ 

Thus was the doctrine of ultramontanism inverted 
into anarchism, The one premise always present in 
Lamennais’s thought is the social criterion of values, 
based upon the feeling that society is somehow finer 
and more significant than the individuals who compose 
it. Therein he is at one with Bonald and Maistre and 
in their doctrine of traditionalism he sees but another 
instance of his premise. Had Ballanche carried through 
his ideas, it must now be apparent how harmonious 
they would have been with Lamennais’s. What Lamen- 
nais showed at any rate was that Protestantism, or the 
doctrine of individual interpretation (which was synon- 
ymous with Protestantism in Catholic circles) was not 
the sole enemy of papal authority. The same result 
could be attained more directly by starting from Ca- 
tholicism itself. 


V 


Traditionalism in itself was not condemned until 
1855 in a decretal against Bonetty, a priest.” But as 
early as 1840, Gregory XVI had induced the Abbé 
Bautain to subscribe to a denial of what amounted to 
the same thing.” Its condemnation, a half century 
later than its beginnings in the neo-Christians, marks 
the end of that peculiar movement among Catholic 
philosophers which arose from considerations upon the 

id, 3. 


18“ Wnchiridion ” 1649. 
*° Id. 1622. 


148 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


French Revolution. It served its purpose, when it arose, 
in justifying men’s fidelity to the Church, and, even in 
the forms in which it was condemned, appeared as an 
instrument to raise her above all else in life. When the 
Church developed to the point where she asserted her 
own supremacy, she outlawed those of her children who 
dared assert it for her. Surely the Vatican Council said 
little more than an enunciation of Mennaisianism, with 
the inefficacy of the reason left out. Surely the doctrines 
of Bautain and Bonetty give men over to the Church 
more fully than the doctrine of Maistre did. Where 
both Lamennais and Bautain preached the inefficacy of 
the individual reason, they preached full submission to 
the authority of the Church. When Pius IX was de- 
clared to be infallible cum ex cathedra loquitur, he was 
declared to be exactly what they had said his predeces- 
sors were, Here was an infallible power condemning 
doctrines which supported its infallibility. 

But these doctrines admitted much that anti-Catholics 
were happy to see admitted, in short that the Church 
taught truths which were contrary to reason. With the 
growth of natural science in the nineteenth century, it 
would hardly have been profitable to admit any such doc- 
trine as that. Bautain, to be sure, tried to demonstrate 
that even natural science accepts truths on faith, but 
there were plenty of Catholic scientists to dispute that 
and to defend the rights of free inquiry and free polemic 
in their own interests. The Church had need of a stout 
defence both of the efficacy of faith and of reason, and 
wished the faithful to believe that faith could be the 


THE NEO-CHRISTIANS 149 


result of reason, preceded by reason, and in no wise 
contradictory to reason. If it seemed to be contradictory 
to reason, so much the worse for the reasoner. Reason 
should choose postulates whose implications would not 
conflict with the dogmas of the Church. It was very 
simple. “ For who knows not or cannot not know that 
all faith should be given to God when He speaks, and 
that nought is more compatible with reason itself than to 
acquiesce and to hold firmly to those things which have 
been revealed by God, who neither errs nor causes 
error.” The Vatican Council explained the matter once 
and for all.” 

Novelty in Catholic philosophy was tried in vain. 
Nothing contributed by the Traditionalists was accepted 
by the Church except their aid. They had, it is true, 
done much to raise the prestige of Rome, weakened as 
it seemed by the atheism of the Revolution, by the des- 
potism of Napoleon, by the Gallicanism of the Res- 
toration. But such enthusiasm as it raised was senti- 
mental, and could in the long run do only harm. The 
Church had lived long enough to know the value of 
quietly waiting. If Catholic philosophers were dutiful 
children of the Church, they would submit. If not, they 
must pay the penalty. 

If Traditionalism was not influential in molding the 
policies of the Church, it was only a little more influen- 
tial in molding the character of French culture. Its ad- 
herents were opposed to the new movement in literature 

*° Pius IX’s encycl., “Qui pluribus,” “ Enchiridion” 1639. 


1 Const. Dogmat. de fide cathol.” cap. 3 and 4; “ Enchir- 
idion ” 17809. 


150 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


and in science. It is true that in certain literary circles 
it was not without effect. M. Maréchal has shown what 
it did for the young Victor Hugo and for Lamartine. 
But it achieved its results through Lamennais and the 
liberalism which was the final philosophy of both poets 
was hardly an achievement of which the Church would 
have been proud. Lamennais’s personal influence was 
great, even before he left the Church, But the literature 
which his disciples published was impressive only 
in the case of the Mennaisian Lamartine. Maurice 
de Guérin may be added to Lamartine. But with the 
exception of his journal, there is hardly a trace of his 
contact with the Mennaisian philosophy. 

The art of the neo-Christian tradition which flows 
from Chateaubriand seems at first sight to be a much 
more authentic instance of the christianizing of litera- 
ture. Chateaubriand himself said that after the publica- 
tion of “ René,” ‘A whole family of René poets and 
René prose-writers began to swarm. One heard only 
woe-begone and unstrung phrases. They talked of noth- 
ing but winds and storms, in uncouth words tossed into 
the clouds and the night. There was not a ninny fresh 
from high-school who did not dream of being the most 
unhappy of men; not a baby of sixteen years who had 
not drained life dry, who was not tormented by his 
genius, who, in the depths of his thoughts, was not 
given over to the waves of his passtons, who did not 
beat his pale and disheveled brow, and astound his stu- 
pefied fellows with a sorrow whose name was unknown 
to him and to them as well.” ” This is simply Chateau- 


22“ Mém. d’Outre-Tombe” II 262. 


a6 ght aaa 
te 





THE NEO-CHRISTIANS 151 


briand’s own testimony to a fad which he created. But 
it was a fad insofar as it affected the art of literature 
and not religion. It made for romantic melancholy and 
not for Christian piety. In that field grew nothing of 
importance sown by Chateaubriand. 

One of the aims of “ Le Génie du Christianisme ” ™ 
as of Ballanche’s ‘‘ Du Sentiment,” ™ had been to show 
painters that there were subjects in Christian legend as 
worthy of delineation as those taken from pagan anti- 
quity. This was of course a challenge to David and his 
school, whose aim had been to go back to what Winckel- 
mann had told them was classic serenity, which meant a 
drawing of the human figure as if it were made of mar- 
ble, with little or no feeling for color. But Chateau- 
briand’s aim was not to affect an innovation in esthetic 
method ; it was simply to furnish a new subject matter. 
He himself was a Davidian and would probably have 
thought it inconceivable that the Davidians should be 
dethroned.” 

His aim of furnishing a new subject matter at least 
would seem to have been achieved. During the Revolu- 
tion religious subjects had all but disappeared from ex- 
hibitions.” But after the Restoration they reappear. 
One hundred and ninety religious compositions only 
were shown from 1791 to 1812 in the Salon.™ The lists 

#2 34 pt., liv. i, ch. 3; liv. ii, ch. 3. 

mir 170. 

*° See Rosenthal; “La Peinture Romantique,” P. 1900, p. 
39 n. 8. 


”¢ Rosenthal 4o. 
*" Td. 40 n. 4. 


152 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


we have of the paintings in the Salons of 1817, 1819, 
1822, 1824, 1827, while showing a steady growth towards 
romantic predominance, still show a surprising number 
of such titles as ‘ Saint Etienne préchant l’Evangile ” 
(Abel de Pujol, 1817), “1l’Annonciation” (Lordon, 
1817), “ Mort de Saint Louis” (Ary Sheffer, 1817), 
“ Martyre de Saint Cyr ” (Heim, 1819), “ Ecce Homo ” 
(Rougel, 1819), “ La Samaritaine”’ (De Boistremond, 
1822), “Descente de la Croix” (Delaroche, 1822), 
“ David et Saul” (Gros, 1822). La Minerve Francaise 
(VII 263) was delighted to ridicule this, and Jouy en- 
joyed himself thoroughly reporting the Salon of 1819, 
with its pictures of “saints, monks, powers, riches,” 
everything “except la patrie.’ One is tempted to say 
that this is surely a realization of Chateaubriand’s dream, 
but as a matter of cold fact, there was an economic 
reason behind it. The Revolution had stripped the 
churches of their paintings and it was desirable to re- 
place them. Very few of the great painters of the time 
were affected. They continued to choose their subjects 
from Homer—Prudhon’s “ Andromaque” (1817) ; 
from the tragedians—Guérin’s “‘ Clytemnestre ” (1817) ; 
from Apuleius—David’s “L’Amour et Psyche” (1817) ; 
from Ariosto—Ingre’s “ Roger délivrant Angélique ” 
(1819); from European history—Horace Vernet’s 
“Bataille de la Navas de Tolosa” (1817); Gros’s 
“L’Embarquement de la Duchesse d’Angouléme ” 
(1819); Ary Sheffer’s “Les Bourgeois de Calais ” 
(1819). Ina majority of cases the religious paintings 


*° For a list of all exhibits, see Rosenthal, App. I. 


_———— _ 


~*~ 


THE NEO-CHRISTIANS 153 


seem to have been ordered by churches. Jouy says that 
Paris gossip attributes their appearance to orders from 
the Minister of the Interior. But though the Minerve 
is biassed in such matters, it is true that out of the pic- 
tures taken from Christian history exhibited in the 
Salons from 1817 to 1827, about fifty per cent now hang 
in French churches. 

A real change was being introduced into the French 
artistic consciousness at this time, but neo-Christianity 
was but a contributing cause. The Catholicism of the 
Sentimentalists, Chateaubriand’s group, was, as we have 
said, not much different in essence from the Protestant- 
ism of Mme. de Staél. It came from Rousseau and 
found its fullest expression in French romanticism. 
Romanticism had an historical interest, a nationalistic 
interest, an ethical interest, which were fed by Chateau- 
briand. But it was not his Catholicism which fed 
them. It was the mystic strain in his character, 
which made him and Ballanche and Lamennais so 
different from the rationalistic Bonald and Maistre. 
The latter took the weapons of the Rationalists to 
defend the Church. The former turned from rational- 
ism, as Rousseau did, and pronounced their creed 
because of the stimulus of their feelings. The Vol- . 
tairean method proved of more lasting value than 
the Rousseauistic, and those who used it stayed within 
the Church. As for the others, as long as they dealt 
in artistic trifles, no harm was done. When they inter- 
fered in religious apologetics, however, it was necessary 
to call a halt. The Church was not Romantic. 


CHAPTER FOUR 
THE INTRODUCTION OF FOREIGN THINKERS 


By the time of Laromiguiére and Royer-Collard, that 
is near the end of the Empire, philosophy was on its 
way to becoming primarily an academic interest. Dur- 
ing the Revolution it had passed from the salon to the 
tribune; during the Consulat and Empire it had be- 
come the accomplishment of amateurs; but now that 
it was once more given a place in the educational system 
of the country, it was to be treated with seriousness. 
It could no longer be ridiculed as the passion of re- 
formers and revolutionists. Its enemies must now 
attack it as the instrument of heresy. 

But insofar as it was represented in the university, 
it was, it must be confessed, a singularly unproductive 
subject. Laromiguiére could talk persuasively and could 
both charm and enlighten auditors who had little knowl- 
edge of their teacher’s predecessors. But there was 
nothing more to be mined from the vein of Ideology ; 
all that had been there was worked out and unless one 
were willing to spend his life in constant recasting of old 
metal, it was hardly likely that one would stay in that 
field. The members of the school at Auteuil were too 
self-satisfied to be adventurous; they were as sectarian 
as the Catholics. Had they been more open-minded, 
they would have discovered in their group the struggling 


154 





Wes # 
VS 


THE INTRODUCTION OF FOREIGN THINKERS 155 


Maine de Biran; they would have attempted the solu- 
tion of the problem of activity instead of leaving it to 
their enemies, and the history of philosophy at this 
point would have revealed an almost unique instance 
of cooperative instead of competitive development. The 
progress of French philosophy, insofar as it depended 
on strictly metaphysical interests, was to depend largely 
on the various solutions given to this very problem. 
That the Idéologues did not fully appreciate its impor- 
tance is sufficient evidence that their real place is in the 
eighteenth century. 

If Ideology was sterile, Catholicism, as we have said, 
was not to prove much more fertile. By its very nature 
it was bound to be what old age had made Ideology, 
exposition rather than discovery. But there was little 
_ stimulation in exposition. If one was to find new 
sources of inspiration, then, one must look beyond 
France. It had been done before. Voltaire had gone 
to Newton, Condillac to Locke; England had proved 
the great foster-mother of French genius whenever 
French genius had had need of sustenance. It was not 
a novelty in French intellectual history that the col- 
league of Laromiguiére should turn to Scotland for 
his inspiration and find it in the work of Thomas Reid. 

Thomas Reid is perhaps one of the last men whom 
one would imagine as a possible stimulus to a French 
thinker. No one could call him a great writer, nor a 
very original philosopher. There is so little brilliance in 
the expression of his ideas that it is sometimes difficult 
to find them. He was the acme of staid sobriety. But 


156 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


he had a certain shrewdness in his comprehension of 
philosophy which was invaluable and which revealed 
a soul made to resist the charm of novelty. He was a 
challenge to innovation and, though the power of his 
philosophy rested to a certain extent on a question- 
begging epithet, it was seldom attacked at its weakest 
point. Hence he seemed a reliable and conservative 
writer, not so conservative as to be reactionary, but 
conservative enough to be safe. He was after all the 
man who could help the youth of 1812 to self-under- 
standing without despair. And that was what their 
teachers felt was needed. 

If one believes that a certain fatality governs the rise 
and fall of thinkers and ideas, the case of Thomas Reid’s 
popularity in France might be to the point. His “ In- 
quiry into the Human Mind ” had been published in a 
French translation at Amsterdam twenty-one years 
before the States General met.’ It seems to have at- 
tracted no attention. It did not even appear in Grimm’s 
“ Correspondence” (1753-1793) where everything of 
any importance appeared. The French public, however, 
had been made acquainted with the notion of “ common 
sense’ from the works of Claude Buffier, and indeed 
the Jesuit’s English translator accused “the Trans- 
tweedian philosopher” of direct plagiarism.” But their 
acquaintance with Reid and his leading idea did not 

*“ Recherches sur l’Entendement Humain d’aprés les Principes 
du Sens Commun,” Amsterdam 1768. 
*See the preface to “First Truths or the Origin of Our 


Opinions Explained,” tr. from the French of Pére Buffer, 
Lond. 1780. 





THE INTRODUCTION OF FOREIGN THINKERS 157 


produce noticeable results and it is fair to say that he 
did not come into his own in France as an intellectual 
power until the time of Royer-Collard.’ 

Royer-Collard is better known as a jurist than as 
a philosopher. It is as the work of a jurist that his 
teaching is best understood. He showed the same 
respect for tradition and precedent in his philosophy, 
as he did in his theory of sovereignty and in his 
speeches in defense of freedom of worship. He gath- 
ered from his legal experience a respect for unwritten 
and uncodified custom. He felt the common notions of 
the Stoics in his daily work. Moreover, his legal ex- 
perience was supplemented by his personal character 
and habits. In contrast to Laromiguiére, who had been 
illuminated by the brilliance of the eighteenth century, 
Royer-Collard received his light from the restrained 
glow of the seventeenth. He had no love of sceptics 
and sensationalists; he preferred the apologists. His 
reading was Pascal, Corneille, Bossuet, Milton—in 
English we are told. His life was as disciplined as 
his reading. His end in teaching was to give to his 
pupils the same calm pleasure which he himself enjoyed 
and in the two and one-half years during which he was 
Professor of the History of Philosophy (1812-1814) 
he seems to have had a certain success. 

When he entered the Faculté des Lettres, there was 
little beyond his political position to give him prestige.’ 
* Cf. Janet; “ Victor Cousin et son Oeuvre,” P. 1885, p. 5. 

*Franck’s Dictionnaire, art. “‘ Royer-Collard.” 


°Cf. Spuller; “ Royer-Collard,” P. 1895, p. 76; Damiron; 
Op. cit. 508. 


158 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


He had no reputation as a philosopher, had up to that 
time founded no school and followed no master. 
Though Taine’s story that his subject was Reid be- 
cause he found one day a copy of the “ Inquiry ” on 
the Quais is too good to be true, yet it is doubtful 
whether he had ever seriously considered the problems 
of philosophy as a dominating interest in life before 
his position obliged him to. 

His very limitations kept him within the covers of 
Reid. Had he had a philosophy of his own to promul- 
gate, he would obviously have spent his time on 
that. But that, it must not be forgotten, would have 
been highly undesirable during the last years of the 
Empire when Philosophy was suspect. Reid was just 
the man to be the philosopher of the “ Doctrinaires.” 

During the first year of Royer-Collard’s teaching, 
Reid was cautiously presented to the class in extracts 
from the “Inquiry.”" Bit by bit his philosophy was 
made more precise and the second year was utilized for 
the substantiation and elucidation of the professor’s 
own ideas. Reid showed Royer-Collard that knowledge 
was more than Condillacian sensations and less than 
innate ideas. It was founded not in atomic and un- 
related bits of psychical stuff, but in judgments upon 
a real world. Thus the fundamental postulate of 
Hume—as Reid understood it—and of Condillac and 
the Idéologues—as Royer-Collard understood it—was 
denied. It was a denial based upon the general experi- 
ence of mankind, as witnessed, for example, in speech. 


*“ Philos. Classiques,” P. Nouv. ed. 21. 
"Spuller; Op. cit. 80. 


at a a 






oon 2 ~ 7. cb 
ee ee 


THE INTRODUCTION OF FOREIGN THINKERS 159 


The attack upon sensationalism was a movement 
towards the right wing of the philosophic parliament. 
The proof through an appeal to the consensus gentium, 
though shared by Lamennais, was a democratic gesture. 
But for Thomas Reid, such things as traditionalism 
and ideology naturally did not exist. He was amply 
content to overthrow the doctrine of David Hume, 
which he thought not only sceptical, but dangerouly 
sceptical. For Royer-Collard Hume did not exist.* For 
him the devil to be exorcised was Condillac. Reid’s 
philosophy was a printed charm apt not only to exorcise 
devils but to make saints. 

Thus a middle course—later to be pursued by Cousin 
—between sensationalism and Catholicism was charted. 
It was that middle course which everyone had looked 
for in vain till then. Its importance was highly practi- 
cal and only slightly theoretical. For during the Empire, 
as before and later, a man’s philosophy meant his 
politics.” Royer-Collard had a very simple and homely 
explanation of why men pursue philosophy and why 


® See his list of “all those who have introduced into philos. 
science some truth or delivered it from some error,” in 
which neither Hume nor Kant figure. “ Discours” of 1811, 
p. 12; ed. Schimberg, 5. 

°Cf. Spuller; Op. cit. 81: “En cultivant la philos., le grave 
professeur ne savait s’abstraire ni de ses croyances relig. et 
morales, ni de ses préoccupations politiques. . . . R-C. ne 
pouvait pas trouver la vérité philos., puisqu’il cherchait tout 
autre chose, c’est-a-dire, une direction pour l’ame des hommes 
aussi bien que des sociétés.” I do not agree with Oscar de la 
Vallée, “M. R.-C. et la démocratie francaise,” (R. Contem- 
poraine, 1862, II 450) when he seems to put the philosophical 
R-C. above political strategy. 


160 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


they should continue to: philosophy is the satisfaction 
of curiosity about the causes of facts “ observed within 
and without man”; it is the “source of the liveliest 
pleasures of the intelligence.” ” But he feared that the 
teaching of philosophy might have more than a hedon- 
istic effect. It might lead men from belief in a limited 
monarchy either towards absolutism or republicanism. 
He was teaching this moderate doctrine, it must be 
recalled, under the eye of Napoleon, for whom he had 
not the warmest affection, and though his doctrine 
seems mild enough now to cause no shock to the most 
sensitive nervous system, in its own day it was not 
so characterless. 

It may not be superfluous to summarize briefly what 
Royer-Collard taught in the second year of his pro- 
fessorship. Nothing is left of his first year. 

His philosophy, a study of the origin of ideas, is . 
based upon a distinction between sensation and per- 
ception. Sensation, for Royer-Collard, as for some 
of his philosophical opponents for that matter, is what 
would be called nowadays “affection” by some psy- 
chologists, that is the agreeableness or disagreeableness 
of an experience, pleasure or pain in Royer-Collard’s 
terminology.” But sensation is a subjective phenome- 
non ; it does not exist apart from psychical beings ; it is 
“in us.” Apart from sensation, however, there is an 


* We use the text of Schimberg, “ Les Frag. Philos. de R-C.,” 
P. 1913. This is, as far as possible, a chronological arrange- 


ment of Jouffroy’s text, originally published in his translation 
of Reid. 


* Schimberg 21. 





THE INTRODUCTION OF FOREIGN THINKERS I61 


existent which is not in us and is revealed to us by the 
sensation. That sensation is not discovered by reason- 
ing ; it is discovered by some unknown process. “ Nature 
is our sole guide.” ” “Each of our sensations is a 
natural sign, which without any forecast and as by a 
sort of enchantment suggests to us the sudden concep- 
tion of some external existence, and not only the con- 
ception of this existence but the invincible persuasion 
of its reality.” The knowledge of this other existent 
is perception. Had Royer-Collard been interested in 
investigating this “ unknown process,” he might have 
been an epistemologist of importance. 

Having insisted upon Reid’s distinction between sen- 
sation and perception, Royer-Collard then points out 
the danger of ignoring it. If perception and sensation 
are both sensation, i.e., subjective, the external world 
does not exist.* This result, which had been accepted 
with equanimity by other philosophers, fills Royer- 
Collard with apprehension. “ Here we are then come 
to this point, where the physical and mental worlds 
crumbling together leave sensation to reign in solitude 
above the abyss of nothingness.” ” He refuses to accept 
this seemingly absurd conclusion and does not mention 
the possibility of an Absolute Mind even to confute it. 
In the second place, if perception and sensation are 
both subjective, morality loses its foundation. For 
morality is founded on the sentiment of joy at the sight 


a 1g. 22. 
mI, 
Wd. 27. 
* Td. 40. 
12 


' 


162 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


of good and of horror at the sight of evil.” If there is 
nothing real but sentiments, good and evil are both rela- 
tive and the morality of Epicurus, which has only to be 
cited to be disproved, is the result.” For the opinion of 
mankind is against it as it is against subjectivism. 

The agnostic element in the process by which we 
posit an external world is duplicated in Royer-Collard’s 
notion of what the external world is like. We know 
that it has the fundamental primary qualities of exten- 
sion and solidity * which are “ modified” in various 
ways, so as to give us the the ideas of divisibility, figure, 
mobility, etc. As for the secondary qualities, we know 
merely that they exist and that they are “the unknown 
causes of certain sensations.” ” That is sufficient to 
establish their independence of humanity in the opinion 
of Royer-Collard. 

But so far the human mind is simply a mass of 
unrelated perceptions and sensations. Royer-Collard 
next moves on to explain how they become related. 
The power of relating is found in the human mind 
itself; it is the principle of causality.” Curiously 
enough, the principle of causality reduces to much the 
same thing as Hume’s habitual experiencing of two 
events in succession, though Royer-Collard does not 
seem aware of this and indeed thinks that he is far 

a R$ 

* 1d. 20. 

* Id. 44. 


di Ae: 
Ps Reh Hs 





THE INTRODUCTION OF FOREIGN THINKERS 163 


removed from Hume.” For our notion of causality 
comes not from sensory experience but from our con- 
sciousness of will.” Yet, it will be observed, and Royer- 
Collard observed it too,” it is one thing to perceive a 
causal process; it is another to perceive the necessity 
of the connection involved. Has Royer-Collard gone 
so far beyond Hume as he thinks? 

The principle of causality is fortified by the principle 
of induction. It rests upon two judgments, the stability 
and the generality of the laws which govern the uni- 
verse. It too comes not from experience but from 
“our nature itself.” * Here again he steps into a kind 
of Humism of whose implications he is not entirely 
aware. The question which he should have asked, and 
indeed he may have asked it—we have merely frag- 
ments of his lectures—is, “ Why does human nature 
posit the principles of causality and induction?” Maine 
de Biran asked that question and answered it to his 
own satisfaction. But, as we have seen, Royer-Collard 
objected to some of Maine de Biran’s pet theories, such 
as the perception of sensations without a perception 
of the Ego. He preferred a more legalistic solution 
of such problems. He preferred to base the validity 
of his two main principles on “common sense” for 
that seemed to require no further substantiation. Here 
was an autonomous something. 


ead. 50. 
* Td. 60. 
da, 62. 
** Td. 63. 
** Td. 64. 


164 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


These doctrines and the manner in which they are 
founded, together with the doctrines of absolute space 
and time, are sufficient to place Royer-Collard in the 
history of philosophy. They show that he was neither 
an innovator of ideas nor a brilliant expositor. He 
has the importance of an historical fact. The doctrines 
which he imported from Scotland were to be of great 
influence in his day. His pupil, Cousin, undoubtedly 
found in the theory of common-sense an inspiration 
of eclecticism and in the Reidian theory of knowledge 
an inspiration of his spiritualism. Cousin’s contempor- 
ary and pupil, Jouffroy, the translator of Reid, was 
a more orthodox devotee of common-sense and, though 
dimmed by Cousin’s glory, he was not without a fol- 
lowing of his own. Royer-Collard therefore can be 
said to have propelled the “new philosophy,” as it 
was called, into the current of nineteenth century 
thought. For it makes little difference to the history 
of ideas whether a man is profound or superficial. A 
man’s influence depends more often than not on his 
eloquence. That may have been the secret of Royer- 
Collard’s.* 

II 


The influence of Reid and the Scottish School acted 
through Jouffroy and was weakened by the introduc- 
tion into France or German thought. The two main 
German philosophers who were made known to the 
French public during the first half of the nineteenth 
century were Kant and Schelling. Such thinkers as 


* Cf. Spuller; Op. cit. 84. 





THE INTRODUCTION OF FOREIGN THINKERS 165 


Herder, Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, the Schlegels, No- 
valis, the German romanticists in general, had a literary 
rather than a philosophic influence. Fichte, curiously 
enough, attained no popularity at all. That German 
philosophy should have reached the position it had 
is in large part the work of one man, Victor Cousin, 
although it must not be forgotten that if one man is able 
to initiate a movement, it is because other men have 
prepared the way. 

Kant was known in France as early as the Revolu- 
tion. At that time, when interest was largely directed 
towards social affairs, he was looked upon by the public 
at large as a revolutionist. Cabanis, for instance, who 
acted as correspondent for Garat’s journal, “ Le Con- 
servateur ’—not to be confused with Francois de 
Neufchateau’s—writes (2 September 1797) that the 
representatives of the new Batavian Republic are 
“penetrated with the principles of the philosophy of 
Kant,” ” as if that made them better republicans. 
Again, he writes from Hamburg (3 October 1797) 
that “the strongest works in favor of liberty come 
from the pupils of Kant. The enthusiasm for the cause 
and for the philosopher seem inseparable in many 
minds.” This, adds the writer justly, is not said as 
the result of blind admiration for Kant on his part, for 
it concludes a letter in which “the new Leibniz”’ is 
harshly criticised for his vagueness and obscurity, 
although it does not pass over “his lively enthusiasm 


™ Le Conservateur, no. 2 (16 fructidor V), p. Io. 
** Id. no. 50, p. 397. 


166 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


for virtue, his great love of man, his energetic feeling 
for liberty.” 

A classic anecdote,” which would endear Kant to 
the Revolutionists, is given in the Clef du Cabinet (14 
brumaire VII).” Kant therein is praised for his having 
practised what he preached. It would appear, according 
to this anecdote, that Frederick William II, to whom 
Kant’s principles had been denounced as hostile to the 
Prussian form of government, ordered him to retract 
or be deprived of his chair. Kant is said to have 
replied—I cite only the anecdote, not the facts—“ The 
King can dispose of my lot, but he cannot oblige me 
to deny my conscience and my inmost convictions.” 
Whereupon the King relented. The Journal des Défen- 
seurs de la Patrie (16 ventose VIII—6 March 1800) 
quotes the Austrian general, Starray, to the effect that 


Kantianism had corrupted the students of Heidelberg: 


they were not sufficiently deferential to him and his 
staff." So the Moniteur (11 ventose III—1 March 
1795) speaks of him even at that early date as the 
prophet of a new political order. “The philosophy of 
Kant,” says its German correspondent, “ has numerous 
disciples in and out of the universities. It is looked 
upon as full of new conceptions regarding the nature 


» Repeated in Villers, “ Not. littéraire sur M. Emmanuel Kant 
et sur l’état de la métaphysique en Allemagne au moment ou ce 
philos. a commencé a y faire sensation,” in Francois de Neuf- 
chateau’s Conservateur, P. An VIII, II 31, an early version of 
the introduction to his book on Kant. 

*° Aulard; “P. éndant la Réaction Thermidorienne et sous 
le Directoire,” P. 1902, V 193. 

* Aulard; “ P. sous le Consulat,” I 194. 





THE INTRODUCTION OF FOREIGN THINKERS 167 


of the understanding of the human mind and capable 
of giving a new spurt to philosophy, which appears to 
be devoting its meditations to the liberty of peoples.” ® 
On the 13 nivose IV (3 January 1796) there appeared 
in its pages a long—three and one half column—article 
ere isanis troject- of Perpetual Peace.” Herein 
Kant is contrasted with the counter-revolutionary 
French. He is a philosopher “who professes with 
generosity a republicanism not of France but of the 
entire world.” He has just “ supported with the weight 
of his name the cause of republican constitutions.’ The 
reporter, naturally enough, italizes Kant’s words, “If 
it should occur that a powerful and enlightened people 
should be enabled to form a republic, this republic, 
which by its nature ought to be inclined towards per- 
petual peace, will be a center for federal association 
for other states, which will be attached to it in order 
to assure the freedom of the states in conformity with 
the idea of the rights of peoples and of extending little 
by little the common bond.” The feeling that Kant 
was friendly to Republican ideals seems to have lin- 
gered on in the popular French mind. M. Mathiez’s 
book on Théophilanthropie cites an “ Almanach de la 
Franc-Maconnerie ” published in Angers in 1886 which 
puts Kant along with Buddha and Zoroaster as one of 
the martyrs and benefactors of humanity.” 

As the popular opinion of philosophy in general de- 
clined, Kant’s reputation suffered with his French con- 

* Moniteur, reprint, XXIII 561. 


* Moniteur XXVII 100. 
* “Le Théophilanthropie etc.” 610 n. 


168 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


fréres. The philosophers themselves, according to a 
report of the Prefect of Police (26 October 1801) com- 
plained bitterly of their new position in society and 
feared that public hatred would be drawn to them.” 
It was at this time that Napoleon linked Kant’s name 
with Cagliostro’s and “ all the dreamers of Germany.” 
It was then that the Journal des Défenseurs de la Patrie 
in the very article quoted above says that Kant’s repu- 
tation “is dying before his eyes.’ Three years later 
the Gazette de France (31 December 1803) laughs him 
to scorn, sarcastically predicting that since doctrines 
change with each century, Kantianism may very well 
be the doctrine of the Nineteenth.” Some of this new 
feeling against Kant may have been political in origin 
and not merely a part of the general change in the 
public esteem of philosophy. For Siéyés, who was 
about to propose a new constitution for the Convention 
after the fall of Robespierre, wrote to Kant for advice. 
Kant declined to answer. But a letter, “ Antwort- 
schreiben an dem Abt Siéyés” (tr. from the Latin, 
Bale 1797), railing at the Revolution and all its works, 
was published as his.” 

So much for the popular regard for Kant. The in- 
terest of the French philosophical public in him was 
shown as early as October 1794, when Miller, an 
Alsatian, in a letter to his friend Grégoire, announced 
that he would try his hand at a sketch of the critical 

* Aulard; “ P. sous le Consulat,” II 590. 

*° “ Opinions de Napoléon etc.” 223. 


* Aulard; “ P. sous le Consulat,’’ IV 607. 
* See Barni; “ Kant et la Rév. Fr.,” R. de P., 1856, XXX 505. 





THE INTRODUCTION OF FOREIGN THINKERS 169 


philosophy.” This sketch does not seem to have been 
published. Another of Grégoire’s friend, Blessig, wrote 
him in 1796 that the papers were reporting a similar 
project of Siéyés. In that year there appeared both 
a translation of the “Project of Perpetual Peace” 
and Imhoff’s translation of “The Sentiment of the 
Beautiful and the Sublime.” The Publiciste of the 7th 
of Pluviodse, Year VII (26 January 1799) announced 
that a French writer was at work on a translation of 
the first critique, “a work which has a great reputation 
in Germany.” ® Meanwhile Francois de Neufchateau 
had been running a series of articles in his Spectateur 
du Nord, written by Charles Villers and “ Ph. Hul- 
diger ” “ which he later published in the second volume 
of Le Conservateur (1800). It is interesting also that 
Cuvier in his “ Lecons d’Anatomie”” (An VIII, I 6) 
cites him offhand as a proponent of the theory that the 
whole of the living organism determines the parts, as 
if there were not a doubt about the prestige of such 
a citation. By 1804 Schweighauser, writing on “ The 
Present State of Philosophy in Germany,” can say, 
“The works of Kant are too well known for me to 
give a detailed account of them here.” ® 

8° See Gazier; “ Frag. de lettres inédites rélatives a la philos. 
de Kt. (1794-1810),” R. Philos. 1888, p. 58; Picavet; “ Critique 
de la Raison Pratique,” P. 1888, Intro. 

“ Aulard: “ P. pendant la Réaction Thermidorienne,” V 340. 

“He was Tranchant de Laverne, an officier de dragons (d. 
1815) according to Quérard. Picavet, in his introduction to the 
“Critique of Practical Reason” (vii, n. 4) thinks that he was a 


friend of Grégoire. 
““Meélanges de Littérature et de Philos.,” P. 1804, I ror. 


I70 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


Such interest as that noted above centered in the 
main about Kant as a moralist. According to Blessig 
the need in France was for a clear report on Kant’s 
philosophy as a whole, lest there should occur there 
what had occurred already in Germany, “that a great 
number of feeble and light-headed people believe that 
they have found in Kant merely the patriarch of scep- 
ticism and even of atheism. It would be necessary,” 
he went on, “as I see it, to preface the work with an 
introduction terse as far as the principles go, and 
intelligible as to style; and I believe that it would be 
well to append a synopsis of the work which Kant gave 
out two years ago on the Christian religion.” © 

Viller in his early articles shares the same interest. 
In fact, he says,” those who know Kant as a meta- 
physician know only a part of him. He is stronger 
as a destructive critic than as a system builder.” Hence 
there are presented not his metaphysical works but his 
“Idea of what a Universal History might be in the 
view of a Cosmopolitan” (Idee zu eimer allgemeinen 
Geschichte in Weltbiirgerlicher Absicht; Berl. Mo- 
natsch., Nov. 1784), and his “ Theory of Pure Moral 
Religion,’ (Theorie der Reiner moralischen Religion, 
Riga 1796)—in accordance with Blessig’s desire? The 
application of Kant’s cosmopolitanism to the revolu- 
tionary movement in France, which like modern soviet- 
ism pretended to be a means of international salvation, 
was too obvious to be overlooked. Villers could not 

“* Gazier ; Op. cit. 59. 


“Francois de Neufchateau’s Conservateur II 31. 
“lds st: 


me 


Dn eae. ied ty ade eee ee 


fae 4 ons fee ght 





THE INTRODUCTION OF FOREIGN THINKERS I7I 


but relate Kant’s opinion that our forebears have been 
working for our happiness and we for our descendants 
to certain contemporary beliefs in France.” Again 
Kant’s faith in a union of nations, harking back as he 
said to the Abbé de Saint-Pierre and Rousseau, is 
echoed by Villers, who believes that men are not far 
from enjoying the happiness that such a union will 
surely entail.” Kant, he believes, was a prophet who 
foresaw the political troubles of the times just as he 
foresaw the discovery of Uranus.” Indeed Villers’s 
attitude towards Kant is that of an apostle rather than 
of an expositor. Kant is to him the one person who 
could help the world in those troubled days. It was 
this religious devotion which led him to abuse the 
French public later on for not accepting his master 
with the same zeal. So “Huldiger” also writes of Kant. 
Kant is to produce “a revolution in the human mind, 
advance knowledge, rectify acquired knowledge, assure 
the progress of future knowledge, etc., etc.” Such 
enthusiasm, if it did nothing more, was bound to call 
attention to Kantianism. 

When the nineteenth century opened, the essays of 
Le Conservateur seem to have awakened most sym- 
pathy in Lyons. For the Lyonnais were traditional 
mystics. Kant’s reputation as a student of moral and 
religious problems and the devout manner in which his 
Opinions ‘were discussed, were such as would not endear 

* Op. cit. IT 65. 

Dla. 75. 


“Td. 78. Cf. p. 82 and the translator’s concluding notes. 
® Conservateur II 210. 


I72 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


him to men of a sceptical turn of mind, although later 
he was to become known in France principally as a 
sceptic. “ The Kantian philosophy proves victoriously 
the immateriality (and hence the indestructibility) of 
the soul, since it demonstrates that matter can provide 
nothing for the ideas of the reason,’ wrote “ Hul- 
diger”” “ From the principle of the existence of the 
soul,” he continued, “is easily deduced that of freedom, 
as from the necessity in which the reason finds itself 
to discover an absolute cause which links together in 
an absolute whole the diverse parts of this vast uni- 
verse, is deduced the idea of God. By these very prin- 
ciples, this new philosophy destroys materialism for- 
ever.” How strange this will seem to the modern reader 
as a judgment on Kantianism. Yet, stranger still, a 
reader of Le Conservateur would find Kant proved 
an opponent of idealism, dogmatism, and scepticism. 
Even the immature Ballanche in Lyons expressed 
the astonishment that all readers of Kant or of his 
expositors expressed at the general ignorance of his 
works.” Ballanche went so far as to say that what he 
called “ sentiment ” in that early work of his is the basis 
of Kant’s system of philosophy.” It is this remark 
which convinces the historian of French ideas that 
Ballanche’s Kant is the Kant of Villers and “ Huldiger.” 
For what he calls “sentiment” is “the moral power _ 
which judges by instinct and without deliberation that j 
which conforms to the laws of our nature, considered 


Ce ee ee ee ee ee, ee oe - 


de) ah 223) 
*“T)u Sentiment,” 28. 
mr a.) AD. 





si 


THE INTRODUCTION OF FOREIGN THINKERS 173 


under the aspect of our ansmality, our personality, our 
spirituality. Sentiment never separates these three 
aspects; it apperceives them in an indivisible instant. 
The first establishes the empire of physical sensibility 
or sensations ; the second, that of individuality or con- 
science ; the third, that of our intellectual faculties, or 
of our soul.”” In “ Huldiger’s ” translation of the 
“Theory of Pure Moral Religion,” the basis of human 
nature are given as animality, humanity, and person- 
ality.” Animality in this article is that which accounts 
for our self-preservation, the propagation of the spe- 
cies, and gregariousness. Humanity is the basis of our 
sympathy for others. Personality is the basis for 
morality. The parallel is not absolute but sufficiently 
close to suggest the historical relationship between the 
two writers, especially when it is supported by other 
details. 

Another Lyonnais to be interested in Kant was 
Ampere, as we have already seen. He and Stapfer were 
responsible for introducing Kant to Maine de Biran. 
Ampére uses the Kantian terminology as if it were 
second nature. Stapfer had been a Kantian while a 
professor in Berne (1791-1798) and knew the critical 
philosophy probably better than most of his friends 
in Paris.” But besides these two men whose conversa- 
tion and correspondence helped to spread Kantanian- 
ism, there were in the early years of the nineteenth 


la. 12: 

* Conservateur II 95. 

* Luginbuehl; “ Philippe Albert Stapfer,” Fr. tr., P. 1888, 
p. 46. 


174 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


century the works of the Dutch poet, P. Kinker, trans- 
lated by le Févre, Charles Villers, Degérando, not to 
mention the Polish mathematician and philosopher, 
J. Hoene-Wronsky.” 

Kinker’s book, “ Essai d’une Exposition Succincte 
de la Critique de la Raison Pure” (Amsterdam 1801), 


°° A former artillery officer in the army of Kosciusko. After 
a sojourn in Germany and in the Polish Legion of Marseille, 
he lived in poverty in Paris. According to Michaud’s “ Bio- 
graphie Universelle,” “ His works concern transcendental philos. 
and mathematics of the highest order; he looked upon himself 
at once as a Messiah and as a new Newton; he announced that 
he had discovered the general and rigorous solution of equa- 
tions of all degrees, the creation of a definitive theory of 
numbers, the general solution of the mechanical construction 
of matter in its three states of solidity, liquidity, and aeroform 
fluidity.” 

In 1893 he published a small book, the first volume of a 
projected set of eight, “La Philos. Critique découverte par 
Kant,” Marseille et P., An XI. “The object of this work,” 
said the announcement on the first page, “is the exposition 
first of the complete system of the critical philosophy as it was 
given by Kt.; second, of everything which has been done to 
date in Germany as a consequence of the discoveries of this 
great man.” As a matter of fact Wronsky is interested in 
his own theory of what he calls the “last foundation” of the 
critical philosophy and, whatever he may have written on this 


subject elsewhere, this work does not show what the foundation ; 
in question was. Later he gave a course on transcendental § 
philosophy of which the program was published in 1811. In it — 
he tried to deduce all science from the principles of transcen- 
dentalism, just as he had—so he maintained—deduced the prin- 4 
ciples of mathematics. Though this course was protected by 
Fontanes, according to the printed program, the lecturer had : 
no influence on his contemporaries. J. Dickstein, however, ; 


(R. Philos. 1888, p. 416) gives him greater importance than I do. 





THE INTRODUCTION OF FOREIGN THINKERS 175 


as its French title goes, is prefaced by the usual re- 
marks about French sloth in acquiring a knowledge of 
Kant. Nothing has been published to speak of, says 
le Févre, “ which would arouse the suspicion that the 
French take the slightest interest in a new science, the 
first effect of which will be to end baneful dissensions, 
the only result of which... . is scepticism and a 
contempt for all philosophy.” “ The main interest of 
this book is the review which it inspired Destutt de 
Tracy to write and to read before the second class of 
the Institut (7 floréal X). 

The interpretation of the leading Ideologist of Kant’s 
doctrine is clearly expressed in this memoir. His know]l- 
edge of Kant—like that of most of his contemporaries 
in France who had read Kant—was derived from 
Born’s Latin version of his writings and not from the 
German originals.” His main objections to the critical 
philosophy indicate what he understood it to be. They 
are, for instance, (1) that sensibility is not passive 
since no perception is produced unless an impression 
excites activity; (2) sensibility receives other impres- 
sions than those extra corpus, for it receives internal 
sensations and past sensations; (3) it is not necessary 
to have a general idea in order to make a judgment, 
to “ pronounce that a thing is good to us, that a savor 
is sweet to our taste, by reporting them to the general 
ideas of goodness and sweetness’; (4) that Kant does 

* Op. cit. i. 

* Destutt de Tracy; “ De la métaphysique de Kt.,” Mem. de 


PInst: Sct. Mor. et Pol. IV 551. 
0. 


176 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


not prove that there are two kinds of knowledge, one 
from our inherent faculties, one from experience, “ the 
result of the application of these faculties to objects.” ” 

As one reads Destutt one sees that curiously enough 
what bothers his mind in Kantianism is the feeling that 
perhaps it is a disguised Neo-Platonism. The Idéo- 
logues were always puzzled by the problem of general 
ideas which they believed to arise from “single per- 
ceptions ” and from “ sensations.” “ That general ideas 
have any reality apart from that of their origin was to 
them inadmissible. One sees their horror of abstrac- 
tions appearing in their pupil, Stendhal, who repudiates 
with mockery the notion that there is such a thing as 
“ideal beauty.” He says that he is opposed to the 
“idées vides” of Plato, Kant, and their school (sic). 

That Kant was to be viewed with suspicion was also 
the opinion of the last of the Idéologues, Laromiguiére. 
But his criticism was somewhat different from that of 
his predecessors. In a letter to his friend and pupil, 
Saphary, written as late as 15 May 1826, he speaks 
of the passage on Kant in the new edition of his 
“Lecons ” which “ will surprise those who know this 
author only by reputation.” Laromiguiére in his 
edition of 1815-1818 had not mentioned Kant among 
the philosophers who had contributed to the progress 
of their subject,” nor had Royer-Collard in his opening 


° Id. 561. 

“Td. 578. 

” Picavet; “Les Idéologues,’ Appendix, 604. Cf. letter of 
13 Apr. 1827, Id. 606. 

*“Tecons” II Intro. 





THE INTRODUCTION OF FOREIGN THINKERS 177 


lecture of the course of 1811. In the account of which 
he writes to Saphary, Kant is dismissed as a disguised 
sensationalist and sceptic, since he admits the impossi- 
bility of knowing objects outside of space and time. 
As space and time belong exclusively to sensibility, all 
objects which are known must be known through the 
senses. Hence, when we believe certain truths which 
by their nature cannot be known through the senses, 
we cannot believe them with right and justice. Kant 
thus becomes a sceptic, as Blessig had feared years 
before. His error was to limit “human sensibility ”’ to 
“sensible perceptions.” What he should have under- 
stood was that there are sentiments of inner psychical 
states, sentiments of relation, sentiments of moral 
values.“ In other words Laromiguiére tries to solve 
one of the problems which had interested Rousseau, 
long before Kant, the problem of relational judgments, 
much in the manner of some of our contemporary 
realists, by the positing of such knowledge among the 
elementary facts of cognitive experience. For his term 
“sentiment,” as he uses it here, one has only to substi- 
tute “immediate experience ’’—or the term of William 
James, “ feeling.” The problem then becomes one of 
fact. Do we have immediate experiences of terms in 
relation? Happily we are not required to discuss the 
question here. 

Charles Villers’s book was much more influential in 
introducing Kant to the French than Kinker’s was. 
Villers seems to have been one of those sectarians upon 


* Id. 6th ed., P. 1844, II 126. 
13 


178 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


whom Tracy comments so disdainfully in his review 
of Kinker. “ People profess the philosophic doctrine 
of Kant as they profess the theological doctrine of 
Jesus, Mohammed, or Brahma.” * To Villers the critical 
philosophy with the new chemistry were “the two 
major tendencies of our age, the two most remarkable 
steps which our generation has climbed and from which 
it will never again descend.” It is this marvel which 
~has been ignored in France. The works which have so 
far been translated of Kant are as representative of 
him as the “Essai sur le gotit”’ and “Le Temple de 
Cnide ” are representative of Montesquieu.” His doc- 
trine has been banned by many governments; one of 
his pupils has lost his chair on the charge of atheism; 
never was a man so misunderstood.” “It will be be- 
lieved with difficulty some day, when the literary history 
of the nineteenth century is written, that of two en- 
lightened nations, living side by side, separated only by 
a river, one should have ignored with such constancy 
for twenty years what was occurring in the other.” ® 
“For about twenty years,’ he says later,” “a new 
philosophy which is of interest to all human science 
and to morality, which occupies the attention, either 
favorably or unfavorably, of all savants and thinking 
men, from Koenigsberg to Stuttgard, from Copenhagen 

a easy IP 

*° “ Philos. de Kt.,”’ Metz 1801, p. x. 

Mild a cise 

TARVER 

°° Td. \vii. 

ay ae 


THE;-INTRODUCTION OF FOREIGN THINKERS 179 


to Salzburg, this philosophy is still unknown to the 
French, and there has not been found one man who has 
undertaken to study it and to make it known to his 
country.” On the basis of this exaggerated estimate 
of the need for his book, Villers proposes to give an 
introduction to the critical philosophy. 

Naturally this tone of exaggeration moved the French 
public to hostility. The French had their own philo- 
sophical problems to solve; there was no urgent reason 
to cross the Rhine in search of others. Their patience 
was exhausted. As Degérando had taken upon himself 
the task of demolishing the “ Génie du Christianisme,” — 
so Ginguené in the Décade undertook the destruction 
of the “ La Philosophie de Kant.” “ I warn [readers],” 
he said,” “that the book commences at page 251 and 
ends at page 262.” Within a few month the Décade”™ 
counted the slain, saying, “ Within two weeks the 
pétard was forgotten by the public and the philosophers 
of Paris were neither wonderstruck by it, nor fright- 
ened, nor irritated... . A great thing had been an- 
nounced to them and they saw only a little one; they 
wished to know a foreign philosopher, worthy of re- 
spect and too little known, and they were grossly 
abused, literary France was insulted, and they were 
taught nothing.” 

In spite of his apostolic tone and his wretched style, 
Villers gave an account of Kant’s philosophy which 
was not only much the best thing that had as yet 


™ Décade, 30 fruct. IX (17 Sept. 1801). 
® Décade, 20 brumaire X (11 Nov. 1801). 


180 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


appeared on the subject, but was in itself worthy of 
serious consideration. He displayed not only a knowl- 
edge of Kant, but, what was rarer, of Kant’s ante- 
cedents ; his correlation of Kant’s unknown things-in- 
themselves and subjective space and time with Mauper- 
tuis’s reflections on the same matter are of interest to 
historians even to-day.” 

The most important result of Viller’s book would 
seem to be its effect on Mme. de Stael. This woman 
to whom philosophy was a guide to life, fell in love 
with the most technical and least winsome of philoso- 
phers upon reading it. She immediately made the ac- 
quaintance of its author and incorporated what she 
learned from him in “ De I’Allemagne,” of whose in- 
fluence it seems almost supererogatory to speak. 

To Mme. de Stael, Kant was father not only of a 
different philosophy, but of a new philosophy.” Less 
poetic than Platonism, less religious than occasional- 
ism, it is more genuinely moral than either, one gathers, 
for it heightens “‘ moral dignity, establishing all that is 
beautiful in the heart upon a strongly reasoned theory.” 
She admits the obscurity of the Kantian metaphysics, 
which is the foundation in question, but compares Kant 
to the Israelites who had as their guide a pillar of fire 
by night and a pillar of cloud by day. 

Mme. de Staeél is above all attracted by the practical 
effects of Kant’s doctrine and by the prophet’s moral — 
enthusiasm, just as Cabanis was. ‘“ Metaphysics,” she 

® Villers; Appendix to Op. cit. Cf. Maupertuis, “ Fourth 


Letter,” Oeuvres, Lyon 1756, II 196. 
““ Allemagne,” ch. 6, Pt. III, 428. 





THE INTRODUCTION OF FOREIGN THINKERS I8I 


said,” “social institutions, the sciences, all should be 
appreciated in accordance with the moral perfection of 
man: it is the touchstone which is given the ignorant 
as well as the man of learning.’”’ One cannot but sym- 
pathize with her. Moral dignity was exactly what was 
lacking at this time. The stern devotion to duty, even 
in a bad cause, would have been a refreshing novelty. 
No one seemed firm in the strength of his spirit except 
those who, like Mme. de Stael, had been exiled. Op- 
portunism was the reigning philosophy of life as the 
Dictionnaire des Girouettes™ tried to make clear. The 
Empire had been founded by opportunism and had been 
kept alive by it. It built up reputations and terminated 
great careers. If ever there was a day in which eternal 
principles were openly made temporal, it was the day 
when Mme. de Staél’s book appeared. Much hostility 
and fun were directed against it, to be sure.” It de- 
served a great deal of what it received, for there is 
not a line in it from cover to cover which displays the 
slightest sense of humor. 

The treatment of Kant which received the most 
cordial attention from philosophers, was that of De- 
gérando in his “ Histoire Comparée des Systémes de 
Philosophie ” (P. 1804). Dégerando, like Villers, de- 
plores the sort of barrier which existed between French 
and German men of letters, but in a manner much more 
fitting to the task of eliminating it.” He discusses Kant’s 


Pid PEOItT, ch. 1. 

“p. 175. 

™ Blennerhassett; Op. cit. III 515. 
"OS. cit. 1 4390 n. 1. 


182 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


aims, his methods, his results. He finds Kant’s aim to be 
the construction of a via media between scepticism and 
dogmatism, rationalism and empiricism, idealism and 
materialism.” The first aim gives rise to the problem, 
“ How is knowledge possible?” The second, “ What 
is the law in virtue of which we form a chain of ob- 
served phenomena?” ” The third, “ What is the criter- 
ion of a priori and a posteriori knowledge.” Degérando 
then takes up each of these problems in turn and gives 
what he thinks is Kant’s solution. The rest of his ex- 
position is concerned with synthetic and analytic judg- 
ments,” the reason, matter and form,” space and 
time,” the categories,” etc. Hence, as his exposition 
was interlarded with quotations, readers of it were 
bound to derive from it not only a concise idea of what 
Kant was teaching, but also an acquaintance with the 
Kantian terminology. 

Degérando is by no means overcome with the majesty 
and originality of Kant’s thought. He admits its suc- 
cess * but attributes it not only to the vast range of its 
details, its order, its severity ;” but also to its satisfying 
of man’s weakness for the mysterious and difficult. The 
new philosophy was surrounded by a haze of glory; to 
be a disciple was to have been initiated into some Eleu- 


dV Tbr So icf Me Ws > 
nde Mite2: 0d. 1 20m 
" Td. Th 783. dds 1h 232) 
Odell 84) eid. LL age 
*8 Td. II 200. SALDs 


Mild, UL 202: 


THE INTRODUCTION OF FOREIGN THINKERS 183 


sinian rite until then unknown.” It is this sectarianism 
which embitters Kantians and their opponents.” The 
sole positive result seems to be the number of philo- 
sophical systems it has begotten.” 

After the publication of Degérando’s history, infor- 
mation was available both on Kant’s life and ethics, and 
also on his metaphysics. It was then that the philoso- 
phers began to read and study him not only in synopses 
of his work but in the original. The Lyonnais group 
had already begun studying him, as we have seen; the 
circle of Joubert, which included Bonald, Fontanes, 
Mme. de Krudener, Chateaubriand,” was soon to be 
introduced to him, for their host was deep in the Latin 
translation and was finding little there but emptiness ;” 
the group at Auteuil, to which Degérando belonged, 
had given him fairly serious attention. Biran’s philo- 
sophic club, whose members included the elder Ampére, 
Stapfer, Royer-Collard, and the young Victor Cousin, 
was to be the most successful patron of the critical 
philosophy of the times. 

In spite of its influence, Kant cannot be said to have 
played a large part in the philosophy of the early nine- 
teenth century in France. Some years later, when 
Victor Cousin came to the fore, students were to re- 
ceive an impetus to study him more closely. Cousin’s 


a0. 1240, 

* Id. II 266. 

* Id. II 269. 

* Raynal; “ Correspondants de J. Joubert,” 124. 
““ Pensées de J. Joubert,” 4th ed., P. 1864, II 62. 


184 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


interest in Kant was not so profound as it might seem 
at first sight. His deeper interest was in Schelling and 
Hegel with both of whom he was able to maintain a 
lasting friendship.” From both he absorbed certain 
doctrines. But he did inspire the first complete and 
scholarly translation of Kant’s critiques, that of Jules 
Barni, who devoted both his intellectual life and a good 
part of his income to this work.” 

Whether the feeling that Kant was a revolutionist 
persisted ; or whether the notion that he was a religious 
sceptic held sway, the Restoration did not feel that 
warmth for him which it felt for his successors in 
Germany. Yet in the second half of the nineteenth 
century; one of the leading philosophical schools 
claimed, with more or less reason, direct descent from 
Koenigsberg, and readers of so non-academic a book 
as Barrés’s “ Les Déracinés”’ will recall how strong a 
hold Kantianism developed upon the philosophic teach- 
ing of French professors. 


III 


One may, I think, say with confidence that the works 
of Schelling were known to only a very limited group 
before the time of Cousin. It is true that Degérando 
had included him in his history and that Ancillon in 


See his correspondence with them in Barthélemy-Saint- 
Hilaire; ‘““M. Victor Cousin, Sa Vie et sa Correspondance,” 
P. 1895. 

*® See Dide; “ Jules Barni, Sa Vie et ses Oeuvres,” P. 1891, 
p. 56. 


THE INTRODUCTION OF FOREIGN THINKERS 185 


1809 had spoken of him in the normal manner as one 
of the followers and opponents of Kant, contrasting 
him as a “ naturalist” with Fichte, the “ transcenden- 
talist””” But the account covers merely a few pages. 
Mme. de Staél writes of Schelling and Fichte in much 
the same way.” Random notices in the public press do 
not seem to occur with the abundance one might expect. 
For Schelling was at that time a great figure in Ger- 
many, whose only rival was the more youthful Hegel. 
His philosophy of nature was, moreover, the type of 
thinking which ought to have appealed both to the 
growing romanticists and to those strange figures like 
Hoene-Wronski, Baudreville, Allix, Azais,” who read 
a moral significance into the natural order in a manner 
like that of some of the medieval symbolists or of the 


7“ Mélanges de Littérature et de Philos,’ P. 1809, II 134, 
142. 

* “ Allemagne,” Pt. III, ch. 7. 

* J. B. P. Baudreville, author of “ Mes Conjectures sur le Feu, 
Considérés dans l’Univers et dans Homme Physique et Moral,” 
Strasbourg, 1808. This book represented God as the active and 
Matter as the passive elements in the universe. Fire was God’s 
agent in carrying out His will. Baudreville, who was an artillery 
officer under Napoleon, made much of the use of heat in pro- 
ducing chemical changes and physical movement and in main- 
taining life. He was inspired largely by the discoveries of 
Lavoisier, Laplace, Galvani, and even by Mesmer. He was 
typical of a kind of philosopher during the Empire and the 
Restoration. 

A good account of J-A-F. Allix’s “ Théorie de |’Univers,” 
P. 1818, is given in the Minerve II 57. For Azais, see our 
Appendix. 


186 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


neo-platonists, and who had their followings here and 
there in France. 

The notices of Schelling and of Fichte, too, which 
appear before the time of Cousin are extraordinarily 
hostile. They remind one of Napoleon’s remarks about 
philosophers in general. Even the Mélanges de Littéra- 
ture, d’Histowe, et de Philosophie whose purpose was 
to introduce foreign ideas to Frenchmen,” cannot 
mention the post-Kantians without ridicule. Perhaps 
the fairest article on them is that of Schweighauser, the 
classical student, on “The Present State of Philosophy 
in Germany.” But he, too, feels that both Fichte and 
Schelling are much less worthy of serious consideration 
than Kant. For the rest, the magazine vents its scorn 
upon the new schools in its literary notices. “The 
secrets of nature,” it says in one of these notices,” “are 
being revealed more and more to the happy disciples of 
Fichte and Schelling. Ina book on the nature of things, 
published at Leipzig, M. J. J. Wagner was sufficiently 
inspired to explain and demonstrate a priori the phe- 
nomena of physics and chemistry, which wretched ob- 
servers are constrained to determine by experiment, 
” Or again, Treviranus, author of a book which 
attempts to derive natural science and medicine from 
philosophy, is said to be distinguished from “the new 
school of Schelling,” “by his study of facts and his 
respect for experience.” “” Mesmel’s essay on logic is 


ec; 


*°° See Prospectus, I 1804 and Degérando’s article, ‘‘ Des Com- 


munications littér. et philos. entre les nations de l'Europe.” 
* TIT 1804 p. xv. 
cu bs Hols 


THE INTRODUCTION OF FOREIGN THINKERS 187 


said to have been praised for its poetic style. “We 
shall remark in passing that one of the discoveries of 
this new school is that logic is in no way a part of 
philosophy as we had been simple enough to believe. 
This is a painful loss to philosophy, but one must be- 
lieve that these gentlemen have their reasons for con- 
demning it.” These examples will suffice to justify 
our opinion. 

But if the editors of the Mélanges were hostile to 
the post-Kantians, the reason for their hostility may be 
found in the presence of Villers among them. He 
seemed to feel that his worship of Kant involved the 
persecution of all other sects. The name of Kant thus 
finds respect whenever it appears. There is, of course, 
an article on his death.” There is an account of his 
“Conjectures on the beginning of human history.” ™ 
There is a reprint of Jaesch’s appeal to Kant’s corre- 
spondents to forward their letters for publication.” 
There is a long article by Schweighauser epitomizing 
Kant’s physical geography.” 
translation of a treatise of Kant on theodicy.™ And yet 
with all this respect for Kant and ridicule for his 
successors, the Mélanges does not find it beneath its 


There is finally a free 


dignity to speak of the very inferior Azais’s “ Essai sur 


6 


le Monde” as a “very singular and very systematic 


fot. xi. 

™ Td. 380. 

* Td. 1805, VII 363. 
fed, 1800, UX ix. 
m fa. 1800, XI 334. 
*% Id. 1807, XV 90. 


188 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


work, but written with a clearness rarely found in pro- 
ductions of this kind.” ” 

In 1817 the Mélanges found a sort of successor in 
the Archives philosophiques, politiques, et littératres. 
This paper was directed by Royer-Collard, Guizot, 
Cousin, and their group. It had much the same goal 
as that of the Mélanges except that it spent more space 
on topics which were purely French. It was more con- 
scious of the subterranean agitation in Europe than the 
Mélanges had been ten years before. “ Whoever will 
observe attentively the present state of the world,” it 
said in its prospectus,” “will be necessarily led to 
recognize in it a great character; a new spirit which 
is stirring the bulk of Europe in all directions, philoso- 
phy as well as politics, moral doctrines as well as 
literary systems, opinions as well as facts; everything 
is moved to follow a direction different from that of 
earlier times.’ Where it will end, no man can say. 


In order to follow it, the editors felt that they must — 


know foreign letters and philosophy. 
The philosophical interests seem to have been in the 
hands of Cousin—perhaps under the guidance of 
Royer-Collard. Cousin gives to Schelling and Fichte 
the respect with which we are accustomed to see them 
treated to-day. He wonders at the omission of Schel- 
ling from the French translation of Buhle’s “ History — 
of Modern Philosophy ”™” and hopes to make it good 
himself. But this hope was never realized in the 
ay ds EBOGs\ aL eK. 


™ Archives I 4. 
B17) 1 140. 





THE INTRODUCTION OF FOREIGN THINKERS 189 


Archives and Cousin used what space he had for the 
development of his own ideas on Locke, Reid, and 
Kant,” on his distinction between spontaneity and re- 
flection,” which was supposed to be a refutation of 
Fichte, by the way, on real and ideal beauty,” on Des- 
cartes’s proof of his own existence, and on pro- 
grammes de cours of his own and of Jouffroy.” He 
was not yet prepared to treat the post-Kantians as men 
deserving extended notice. 

The successor to the Archives may be said to have 
been the Globe (1824-1831). It too prided itself on its 
catholic interests at a time when all the peoples of 
Europe were united towards a common goal.™ It was 
proud of its range and disclaimed any idea of angli- 
cising or germanizing France by the propagation of 
English or German literatures. It was on the whole 
in favor of romanticism as against classicism; it was 
profoundly liberal in its politics; it was eclectic in its 
philosophy. Yet one looks in vain in its pages for an 
article on Schelling or Hegel and finds but two small 
biographical articles on Fichte, one on his youth and 
one on his death, both of which were lifted from the 
Nouvelle Revue Germanique.”” Purely anecdotal, these 
articles mention their subject’s philosophy merely in 


i200. 

Psd IOI e130. 

™ Td. 1818, III, opening essay. 

eid. Al 216. 

ie. SAI 436; TV 86. 

™7 See Prospectus. 

“8 1829, I 345; le Globe, 30 Sept. 1824, VII 615; 10 Oct. 1820, 
VII 6309. 


I90 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


passing, as if it were either without interest to the 
French reader, or too well known to require elucidation. 

Cousins personal introduction to Schelling came 
about on his visit to Germany in 1818. His entry into 
Germany the preceding year had not brought him face 
to face with him. As they were two kindred spirits, 
“enthusiastic and expansive,’ as Paul Janet put it,” 
they quickly reached an understanding. 

Cousin never admitted in public the effect which 
Schelling had had upon his thought. He was above all 
a professor and a politician, the leader of a school; 
his business in life was to expand and criticise other 
men’s ideas and to keep his own intact. He must pre- 
tend that his interest in Schelling was similar to his 
interest in Plato and Aristotle. Schelling was simply 
another philosopher. He wrote to his friend Kehl, in 
1817, “I should be still younger than my age if I were 
going to muddle our nascent school of spiritualism by 
throwing it roughly into the premature study of foreign 
doctrines of which it is not easy to grasp firmly the 
merits and the defects and to measure the exact import. 
No, let us leave the new French philosophy to develop 
naturally by its own virtue, by the power of its own 


method, that psychological method, so disdained in — 
Germany and which is, in my eyes, the one source of ~ 
all true light, etc., etc.” Yet later, in 1866™ Cousin — 


admitted borrowing from both Hegel and Schelling, 


“Victor Cousin et son Oeuvre,” P. 1885, p. 181. 


”° Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire; “M. Victor Cousin, Sa Vie et 


sa Correspondance,” P. 1895, I 74. 
“Brag. Philos.’ V  bxiv, levi 


geese 
wa”. 





THE INTRODUCTION OF FOREIGN THINKERS IQI 


and in an unpublished fragment on Hegel, he speaks 
of Shelling’s system—without denoting which one he 
is referring to—as “the true system.” ™ 

It would never have done to make such admissions 
openly while still a professor. Let some younger man, 
who had no pretensions to leadership, be the French 
Schellingian. “ Mon jeune ami, M. Ravaisson,” ™ who 
was then in Germany, seems to have been selected as 
the likeliest candidate. The first work of the great 
German to be translated into French was to be his 
judgment on the philosophy of M. Cousin. It was 
Schelling’s preface to the German translation of 
Cousin’s preface to his “ Fragments Philosophiques.”’ 
It appeared as “ Jugement de M. de Schelling sur la 
philosophie de M. Cousin,’™ but was translated not 
by Ravaisson but by Wilm. It broke a silence on the 
part of Schelling of twenty years. It was not until 
eight years later that one of his complete works, “ Sys- 
tem des Transcendentalen Idealismus ”’ was translated. 
What occasioned this delay is not utterly clear. Schel- 
ling was not entirely satisfied with Cousin’s opinion 
of him nor of Cousin’s neutrality in the Schelling-Hegel 
quarrel.” Was Cousin deliberately holding back? Did 
he feel that a revelation of Schelling’s own writings to 
the French public would be a danger to eclecticism? 

™ Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire; Op. cit. III 54. 

™ C.’s letter to Schelling, 26 June 1835 in Barthélemy-Saint- 
Hilaire; Op. cit. III 02. 

™ Strasbourg et P., 1835. 


* See his letter of 27 Nov. 1828, Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire ; 
Op. cit. I 257 and C.’s answer, Id. 268. 


I92 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


Was he hesitant about having Schelling translated 
unless Hegel were too? Or was he unable to interest 
possible translators, he who had no trouble when other 
philosophers were concerned? 

The interest of the French public in Schelling had 
already been aroused. In 1833 the Revue des Deux 
Mondes, always friendly to trans-rhenan culture, pub- 
lished a long article by Barchou-Penhoén,™ the inter- 
preter of Ballanche and Fichte, which gave a detailed 
exposition of both Schelling’s philosophy of nature and 
of his philosophy of history. He went into the details 
of Schelling’s system, the dualism of opposing forces, 
of chemical combinations, of organic substances, of sex. 
He spoke of Schelling’s conception—later utilized by 
Bergson—of the summation and continuance of the 
past in any present moment of life. He contrasted the 
philosophy of nature with materialism, pointing out 


that whereas the materialist made life the product of — 
infra-vital existence, the Schellingian made life the pro- — 
ducer of infra-vital existence, again in a measure antici- — 


pating a Bergsonian doctrine of importance. He did 


not overlook the essential unity of the vital principle, — 
which corresponded interestingly enough with Cousin’s 
God, who at times became a highly personalized Jeho- — 


vah, and at times the world itself. 


t 


i 


Schelling had also, to some extent, been presented to © 
the scientific public. The long and detailed “ History © 


of Natural Sciences,’ which was begun by Cuvier and 


* RDM 1833, I 337. 


completed by his friend, T, Magdeleine de Saint-Agy, — 





THE INTRODUCTION OF FOREIGN THINKERS 193 


devotes a whole section to the philosophy of nature, 
deriving Schelling’s system from Goethe’s ideas of 
transformationism on the one hand and on the other 
from Kielmaier’s formula of the law of recapitulation. 
He speaks briefly of the Schellingian theory of polarity 
and develops its consequences with some fretfulness 
over Schelling’s metaphors, but on the whole with 
restraint.” 

Schelling’s philosophy of nature was charming in 
its apparently scientific solution of oppositions which 
science makes no attempt to solve. The conquests in 
chemistry and electricity were catching the popular 
imagination in a way which anticipates the contem- 
porary fascination of psychology. The publishers’ an- 
nouncements had many an item of popular interpreta- 
tions of science. Schelling was bound to be a la mode, 
for his facts were no more difficult to understand than 
those of a hundred disreputable philosophers in France 
and they were interpreted in the light of a philosophical 
theory which was more respectable, which was almost 
sacred. Men like Azais and Baudreville were beyond 
the pale; Schelling was a professor and a member of 
a number of learned societies. He was also a foreigner. 

His philosophy of history was constructed to please 
the French of the day more than the philosophy of 
nature. In the second part of his article, Barchou- 
PenhGden discussed that element of Schellingianism.™ 
The opposition in natural forces was here shown to be 
mirrored in the contrast between determined nature 

“TV 313-331. 

* RDM 1833, II 163. 

14 


194 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


and free history—compare Bergson’s determined matter 
and free life. But since there is in human history a 
mingling of material and vital principles, history is 
seen to be a synthesis of necessity and freedom. But 
is this real freedom, freedom that is wanted by revolu- 
tionists? It is exactly the kind of freedom which 
General Cavaignac offered them through the medium 
of Cousin’s little tract, “ Justice and Charity.” Just 
as Cousin emphasized the correlation of rights and 
duties,” so Schelling emphasized the correlation of 
necessity and freedom. It was of course the Kantian 
doctrine of freedom within the limits of duty, but it 
was presented in an unfamiliar manner. 

The appearance of a synthesis realizing itself here 
on earth was another point to win the hearts of French- 
men. It invested the idea of progress with new author- 
ity, the authority of natural science. The precision of 
historical periods, the periods of fatality, of nature, of 
providence, in which God will appear to man, was 
exactly what was demanded of a kind of thinking little 
given to precision. Comte was satisfying the same need 
with his positivism. Barchou-Penhoen’s readers were 
living under Louis-Philippe. Was he not a synthesis 
himself—in 1833—of monarchy and democracy? He, 
the King, was the incarnation of that strange principle 
of liberty which is identical with and yet different from 
necessity. 

This feeling of satisfaction with Schelling is well 
expressed by M. A. Lebre, writing ten years later in 


™ << Tustice et Charité,” P. 1848, p. 22. 





THE INTRODUCTION OF FOREIGN THINKERS 195 


an article called, “La Crise Actuelle de la Philosophie 
Allemande””™ “ This philosophy,” he said, “ satisfied 
the most opposed needs, the good sense which makes us 
believe in an external world, the reason which redis- 
covers itself throughout the universe, the sympathy 
which attracts us towards nature and makes us love in 
her a sister associated to our destiny. All the sciences 
took a new spurt. They no longer remained isolated, 
like the scattered stones of a building whose plan is 
lost, their nobility was heightened, for all had for their 
goal the august science of God. It was one’s life whose 
secret was found in nature, it was one’s history which 
was duplicated in the annals of humanity. All was 
coordinated in a magnificent harmony.” What Mme. 
de Staél had admired in the German philosophers was 
their examination of self-consciousness.” What the 
readers of the romantic period admired was the adjust- 
ment of self-consciousness to the natural order, for that 
was far more the mal de siécle for which they sought 
a cure than ignorance of the self.” 


eerie tf. s.; 1843, 1-7. 

m1 Allemagne,” Pt. III, ch. 7, after the account of Fichte 
and Schelling. 

*2 If one reads the first chapter of the “Confessions d’un 
Enfant du Siécle,” he will see how to Musset, at any rate, the 
problem in life was to find a pou sto. See, for instance, the 
passage, “Ce fut comme une dénégation de toutes choses du 
ciel et de la terre, qu’on peut nommer désenchantement, ou, si 
Yon veut, désespérance; comme si l’humanité en lethargie avait 
été crue morte par ceux qui lui tataient le pouls. De méme que 
_ce soldat a qui l’on demanda jadis: A quoi crois-tu? et qui le 
premier répondit: A moi; ainsi la jeunesse de France, enten- 
dant cette question, répondit la premiere: A rien.” 


196 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


The introduction of Schelling into French thought 
may be said to be strictly due to Ancillon and Mme. de 
Stael. It was vaguely encouraged by Cousin. The 
first important writer, however, upon whom Schelling 
had an influence was Ravaisson, who belongs properly 
to the second half of the century. 





CHAPTER FIVE 
Tue Rise or ECLEcTICcCIsM 


The name of Victor Cousin is almost synonymous 
with the name of philosophy in France after the 
Restoration, for he ruled the philosophic milieu with 
a relentless vigor. He took over the chair of Royer- 
Collard when he was but twenty-three years old and 
held at the same time the direction of philosophy at 
the Ecole Normale. This task might easily have awed 
and inhibited a person of more years, for the duties 
of his position involved political as well as philosophi- 
cal sagacity. But its importance was an inspiration to 
this youth. He plunged into philosophical instruction 
like a swimmer into a stream, sped through it easily 
and deftly, avoiding treacherous currents with the dex- 
terity of one who is divinely guided. He laid out a 
course which ought to have proved a safeguard to 
his fellow adventurers and indeed it did, as long as 
they followed him. But unfortunately the river in 
which he swam was not left to the control of nature. 
It had been dammed at its broadest part by men who 
wished to use its power for their own ends, and the 
young enthusiast, after a race of five years, found him- 
self swept over a precipitate cascade. Left for dead, 
he spent a certain time in repose, and soon was back 
in the stream as lively as ever. 


197 


198 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


Cousin seems to have seen his goal from the very 
start. It was no more a purely philosophic goal than 
that of the Idéologues or the Traditionalists. It was 
a political goal." His task was to found a philosophy 
which would be non-Catholic and non-atheist, which 
would provide for liberalism but not for republican- 
ism. It was to be a philosophy of the media via, neither 
extreme right nor extreme left. He was, he said later,” 
a believer in the principles of the French Revolution. 
Yet he thought that they could be best safe-guarded 
in a constitutional monarchy. One might imagine that 
this compromise philosophy would have done very 
well after the excesses of the Emperor. But the Res- 
toration was not interested in compromises. It was 
interested in more autocracy, provided it was legiti- 
mate autocracy. Cousin therefore was not officially 
appreciated until the reign of political compromise. 
He was eminently fitted to give philosophical expres- 
sion to the rule of Louis-Philippe. Who can doubt 
that he accomplished that much at least? 

His first duty was to rid himself and his audience 
of the Sensationalism of the eighteenth century, which 


* His opponents saw this early in his career. See Lerminier ; 
“Lettres Philos. 4 un Berlinois,’ Lettre II], RDM, 1832, XI 
744. After Cousin’s arrest, says L., he saw the futility of Hege- 
lianism. “Il saisit sur-le-champ combien le changement était 
capital; ce ne sera plus un philosophe opposant, révolutionnaire, 
inquiétant pour les puissances, mais un sage dominant tous les 
partis, tous les systémes, et, par son inépuisable impartialité, 
pouvant donner des garanties au pouvoir le plus ombrageux.” 
Cf. P. Leroux; “Réfutation de l’Eclectisme,” P. 1839, passim. 

*“ Fragments Philos.,” 5th ed., P. 1886, III 2. 


. 2? 1 


> ™ 


.THE RISE OF ECLECTICISM 199 


he trickily called, after Villers perhaps,’ “ sensual- 
ism.” “ We finally chose,” he said,” “the eighteenth 
century because, while recognizing what there was of 
true and noble even in the desires and tendencies of 
the century from which we are emerging, we propose 
firmly to combat and break the tradition of material- 
ism and atheism, of the blind hatred of Christianity, 
of revolutionary violence and servility, which it handed 
on to us and which at the beginning of the Res- 
toration still weighed upon our minds and _ souls 
with a deadly weight and was an obstacle both to 
the establishment of liberty and of true philosophy.” 
This course was given in the winter of 1818-18109. 
Five years earlier, as we have mentioned in a preced- 
ing chapter, Victor Cousin had sustained the thesis in 
the Faculty of Letters that Condillac had gathered 
together all the knowledge of Bacon, Descartes, Male- 
branche, and Locke about philosophic method and 
had amplified it, and that analysis is the proper method 
of philosophy.* His advance was rapid. In three years 
he had forgotten Ideology and Condillacism. In due 
season he was able to cry to the youth of the land, in 
his preface to “The True, the Beautiful, and the 
Good,”* “If you love freedom and your country, flee 
from that which has proved their ruin. Far from you 
be that gloomy philosophy which preaches materialism 

*“ Philos. de Kant,” p. 154. 

*“Ta Philos. Sensualiste,” pref. to 3d ed. dated 1855, P. 
1856, ii. 

°“De Methodo, etc.,” esp. the theses, p. 109. 

*I use the edition of 1884, p. v. Hereafter V BB. 


200 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


and atheism as doctrines destined to regenerate the 
world; they kill, true enough, but they do not regen- 
crate.” This was a far cry from his dissertation. But 
what Cousin hated in sensationalism was its prag- 
matic import. It could not satisfy man’s most imperi- 
ous need, the need of “fixed immutable principles 

. wherein the spirit rests with limitless confi- 
dence.” Parmenides had no better defence of ideal- 
ism to offer Socrates. 

It is in the development of this point of view that 
Cousin’s spirit of compromise makes itself evident. 
He does not grapple with the problem of whether the 
spirit’s need of rest is a criterion of the truth of those 
doctrines which satisfy it. He is content to assert it. 
But the need engenders a whole metaphysics. For the 
possibility of those fixed principles, he continued, lies 
in the existence of a fixed immutable subject of ex- 
perience which perceives the sameness and the dif- 
ference of the objects which affect it.” The subject, 
which like Condillac’s statue, is merely a compound 
of sensations, could never act upon the sensation’ 
which it experiences. It would not have experiences ; 
it would be experiences. This would result in the in- 
tolerable scepticism of Hume. And since Cousin felt 
that the intolerable was the false, the philosophy of 
the Idéologues is false. He did not deny the existence 
of the body, or the need of having a body, if ever 
the mind is to perform its functions properly. Indeed 
he praises the sensationalists for their perspicacity in 


*VBB to. 
°VBB 43. 





THE RISE OF ECLECTICISM 201 


seeing this.’ But he did deny that the sense-organs are 
more than instruments for the soul—which is not dif- 
ferent from what Bonald had said. 

It might appear that such a doctrine would lead to 
mysticism. But here Cousin compromises. Mysticism 
is “pusillanimously sceptical’ about the reason, It 
seeks too much when it demands an intuitive vision of 
God.” It corrupts feeling by exaggerating its power ;™ 
it is based upon an incomplete account of human na- 
ture.” This last objection is the only one which can 
be tested by fact. One looks in vain for any extended 
substantiation of it in Cousin. He preferred to give 
deeper reasons why mysticism should be spurned. It 
leads to quietism, which is little different in the long 
run from the tolerance of evil and crime.” 

In this insistence upon the practical effects of a doc- 
trine as a means of refuting it, Cousin showed again 
his political interests. Mysticism in his mind seems 
to have been as much associated with the new social 
sects appearing in France, Saint-Simonism, for in- 
stance, and Fourierism, as with the philosophy of 
Boehme and Saint Theresa. Their programs of re- 
form were not based upon the need of a strong mid- 
dle class but upon sentiments such as brotherly love. 
The development of Saint-Simon’s ideas through 
Father Enfantin would be sufficient to indicate the 


°VBB 435. 
*VBB 105. 
“V BB rtt. 
~V BB 113. 
“VBB 116. 


202 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


alliance of mysticism with social cults which, in germ 
in Cousin’s early years, was plainly alarming. Would 
there not be a danger to constitutional monarchy in a 
purely spiritual life? Might the danger not be espe- 
cially grave for his young auditors? 

It is also possible that in Cousin’s mind mysticism 
simply meant “ anti-rationalism.” In spite of the ra- 
tionalistic Bonald and Maistre, rationalism was ac- 
cused of leading to atheism and was at times confused 
even with sensationalism. For the words were now 
used to mean a reliance upon the reason as distin- 
guished from, say, faith—and now as the deriva- 
tion of all reality from Reason. The sensationalists 
were often rationalists in the first sense. Hence phil- 
osophy as contrasted with religion was anathema to 
the religious party. But Cousin staunchly held out for 
the free right of inquiry and believed that this right 
was invested in the reason. Therefore his attacks on 
mysticism were as often as not attacks on the Tradi- 
tionalists. He did not combat them openly, since dur- 
ing the Restoration they were associated with the 
government. But he could more subtly indicate their 
weak points. When he said, for instance, that just as 
one must not make the reason a purely personal affair, 
so one must not with Malebranche confuse it with 
God," did he really think that anyone in 1817 was 
going to Malebranche for guidance in philosophy? 
The danger was rather in fleeing to the bosom of 
Lamennais. : 


eal efehestares m 





THE RISE OF ECLECTICISM 203 


In his own eyes, Cousin was an empiricist of the 
most pronounced type.” He believed in following the 
method of observation, as any experimentalist would, 
and not in laying down general ideas from which de- 
ductions might be drawn. That method, like his prag- 
matism, was not further substantiated. But his em- 
piricism was limited. If the empirical school would 
pretend that there is nothing beyond experience, he 
would leave it.” There are certain general principles 
which the mind possesses—the principles of “ sub- 
stance’’ and of “causalty ’—knowledge of which is 
preceded by observation but not explained by it.” This, 
said Cousin, was the extent of his agreement with 
Kant. These general principles are revealed by the 
mind’s self-scrutiny, as they were in both Maine de 
Biran and, alas, in Schelling. 

Since it is of high importance to understand them, 
the first task of the philosopher is a study of the Ego, 
a study which Cousin thought began with Descartes.” 
This task developed into what Cousin called “the psy- 
chological method,” well expounded by his pupil, Jouf- 
froy.” But Jouffroy believed that direct observation 
revealed the Ego in its nudity,” whereas Cousin held 


1°“ Premiers Essais,” 3d ed., P. 1855, p. 151. Hereafter PE. 
Cf. VBB 20. 

“VV BB 13. 

"VBB 14. 

uP xX 

2” “De l’organization des sciences philosophiques,” and “ De 
” Ja légitimité de la distinction de la psychologie et de la physiolo- 
gie,” in “ Nouveaux Mélanges Philos.,” P. 1842, pp. 206, 223. 

» “ Nouv. Mél.” 236. 


204 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


that the Ego retreated from observation, leaving only 
its phenomenal states to be observed.” One might 
have thought that this disagreement would have led 
the founder of the method to doubt its efficacy. The 
contrary was true, for Cousin with good nature held 
that the study of the Ego was made not for the pri- 
mary Cartesian purpose of proving its existence, but 
of describing its properties.” As was fitting, Cousin 
found by his inner scrutiny that it turned out to be 
not the passive receptor, supposed by him to be be- 
lieved in by the Idéologues, but an active force.” 
Hence the dictum, “‘ Nothing is in the intellect which 
was not previously in the senses,” is untrue. Only in 
so far as the mind is active, does it know anything, 
even that it is passive.“ The sensation, of course, is 
something done to the mind; but the knowledge of it 
is something done to the sensation. 

The very word “act”? meant to Cousin a voluntary 
act, and its use led him to a voluntarism as pronounced 
as Maine de Biran’s. But if it were to be developed, 


as Fichte had developed his, it would lead to an ego- © 


ism more exaggerated than that of the sensationalists 
—which, as a matter of fact, was not exaggerated at 
all except in the accounts of their opponents. It would 
tend to make the Ego not only the creator of knowl- 


edge but also of the world as Cousin foresaw in his ~ 
early article, “Du Clair et de l’obscur dans les con- — 


™ Cf. Ravaisson; “La Philos. en Fr.” 25. 


=“ Sur le vrai sens du cogito, ergo sum,’ in Archives Philos., © 
1818, III 316. Cf. Jouffroy; “ Mélanges Philos.,” P. 1833, p. 244. 7 


*° PE 178. Cf. Plotinus; “ Enneads” IV vi 2; VI i 20. 
ihe eden yeah 


a 


a 


— a 







THE RISE OF ECLECTICISM 205 


* an article intended to be a 


refutation of Fichte based on Fichte’s premises. Hap- 
pily, like a number of other philosophers, he knew 
where he was going before he started out and was 
careful that his analysis of the human mind provide 
a defence against any solipsistic difficulties. Accord- 
ingly it discovered for him two other faculties to 
counter-balance the unpleasant traits of the will. They 
are the sensibility—which is passive and hence entails 
an external world—and knowledge, by which man 
conceives principles which are different from the im- 
pressions of the senses, or the resolutions of the will.” 
This analysis, it must be confessed, leaves one dazed 
by its banality ; it seems little more than the traditional 
sensation, will, and reason of the Aristotelian tradition 
and hardly likely to prove convincing to sensationalists 


naissances humaines,”’ 


or their friends. Cousin nowhere, so far as I have been 
able to discover, tried to prove the unanalysable char- 
acter of will or reason, except in the assertion that will 
is active and sensation passive. He, moreover, found 
the scheme anything but banal, and went so far as to 
say in 1853—and to repeat as late as 1860, “ This 
classification of the human faculties, which would be 
sought for in vain before our course, is our work, and 
with the exception of a few differences more nominal 
than real, is to-day generally adopted and is the basis 
of the psychology of our time.” “ The very fact of its 
banality may have been its charm. It was a return to 
*® Archives Philos., 1817, II 330; PE 250. 


*V BB 32. 
Tr BB 32 n, I, 


206 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


old ways of thinking, involved no mental contortions, 
and maintained a dignified impartiality to all parts of 
the human mind. 

There lay behind this theory of the human faculties 
another theory of which Cousin was equally proud. 
This was the theory of spontaneity and reflection.” 
Spontaneity and reflection are two forms of human 
freedom. Reflection is the free movement of the in- 
tellect about a problem which needs resolution. Reflec- 
tion is practically synonymous with premeditation and 
deliberation. But reflection is by its nature retroactive. 
It does not create; it manipulates its old possessions. 
Spontaneity, on the other hand, is the performance 
of knowledge itself; a free act, impossible to describe 
accurately, for language is the medium of reflection. 
Cousin later said that what he meant by “ spontaneity ” 
was what Leibniz meant by the force inherent in the 
monads.” But whereas Leibniz believed that this force 
was the essence of the universe, the fundamental be- 
ing of things, Cousin, interestingly enough, thought 
that it is only one of the two fundamental aspects of 
the world. Spontaneity is incomplete without reflec- 
tion. It is incomplete because it is dumb. But simi- 
larly reflection is incomplete without spontaneity, for 
without it, it would lack stuff upon which to work. It 
would be, one might say, little if anything more than 
a form of man’s passivity. 

Correlated with spontaneity and reflection are the 
concepts of “cause” and “substance,” which form 


*® See PE 250. 
PPE 256 'h, 





d 
& 
i 


THE RISE OF ECLECTICISM 207 


another reciprocally related pair of terms. “The 
search for their nature, their origin, and certitude, is 


99 30 


the entire body of philosophy. It is useless to try 
to reduce one to the other, for as soon as one is stated, 
the other is presupposed. Now this kind of dialectic 
is familiar enough to readers of post-Kantian German 
philosophies. It was not unfamiliar to the French. 
Schweighauser had been sarcastic at its expense as 
early as 1804 in his article, “ Sir l’état actuel de la 
philosophie en Allemagne.”™ It was clearly in the 
Schellingian vein, the vein in which all positive and 
negative forces were found running together in a 
kind of synthesis. There was no acknowledgment on 
Cousin’s part that he had borrowed the notion from 
Schelling, and in fact in 1817 he was but studying 
German.” But he had read Degérando, and his friend, 
Dubois,” says that his knowledge of Fichte, and pre- 
sumably of all the post-Kantians, came first through 
Buhle and Degérando. Yet Cousin was always chary 
about acknowledging his debt to foreign thinkers and 
over-generous in attributing what he taught to the 
inspiration of respectable Frenchmen. The point must 
be insisted upon for it was of peculiar impor- 
tance to the literature, if not to the philosophy, of 
the age. If Cousin had been freer to develop phil- 
osophic ideas with no thought for political conse- 

mE r OFG. 

** Mélanges I 199. 

* Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire; Op. cit. I 67. 

*“ Cousin, Jouffroy, Damiron,” P. 1902, p. 52. 


208 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


quences, it is not unlikely that he would have made 
much of this sort of dialectic. 

As it was, he used it when necessary. He used it 
in the little tract, “ Justice et Charité,” to which we 
have already referred and shall refer again later, and 
he used it in his doctrine of eclecticism. The doctrine 
of eclecticism would seem to have two logical roots, 
the Reidian doctrine of common-sense and the Kan- 
tian doctrine of the transcendental unity of appercep- 
tion. In both cases truth is the possession of some- 
thing over-individual. The influence of Reid made 
truth the possession of Society—in the manner of 
Lamennais; of Kant, the possession of God. But his- 
torically its root is Reid. For truth, in Cousin’s early 
years, was a synthesis of past truths which in them- 
selves are fragmentary. As early as December, 1816, 
in his discours d’ouverture, he announced a study of 
Locke, Reid, and: Kant which he hoped would result 
in a synthesis of their truths. Linked with this idea— 
which he later said was merely a method of studying 
the history of philosophy—was a philosophic doctrine 
itself, spiritualism.” He said” that his philosophy 
was called “ spiritualism” because “its character is 
to subordinate the senses to the spirit and to tend— 
by all the means which the reason admits—to elevate 
and ennoble mankind. It teaches the spirituality of 
the soul, the freedom and responsibility of human ac- 
tions, moral obligation, disinterested virtue, the dig- 


*“ Lettres inédites de V. C. a Ernest Bersot,” Versaille, 1897, 


Ds 17. 
YY BB 35. 


‘a 
7 





THE RISE OF ECLECTICISM 209 


nity of justice, the beauty of charity; and beyond the 
limits of the world, it shows a God, author and pat- 
tern of humanity, who, after having made man for an 
excellent end, will not abandon him to the mysterious 
unfolding of destiny. This philosophy is the natural 
ally of all good causes.” But spiritualism, as opposed 
to the materialism of the Idéologues, existed in the 
philosophy of Royer-Collard. 

The Kantian influence made itself felt later on. 
Cousin was as impartial as anyone well can be in his 
historical courses. He almost duplicated the lack of 
favoritism which he had shown towards the mental 
faculties. But, to be sure, that “deplorable phi- 
losophy,” “the root of the country’s misery,” sensa- 
tionalism, could hardly be looked upon with so pater- 
nal an eye. It spread scepticism and materialism from 
man to man and destroyed the foundations of true 
liberty.” With it excepted, he tried to absorb all that 
was true in the past.” He believed that each phi- 
losophy, like each faculty, had its contribution to make 
to human knowledge. Later he grouped them under 
the names of sensualism, idealism, scepticism, and 
mysticism, arranged in order of increasing truth. If 
one were to believe in a philosophy fused out of these 
elements, could one not be theistic and yet not ultra- 
montane, liberal and not republican? Was one not 
able still to remain in the middle of the road? This, 
as Cousin said himself, was not “ blind syncretism,” 

ot of BEY 4 

Hi Kyi, 

15 


210 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


but a fitting together of fragments into a whole.” But 
it was a whole which the pattern-maker determined 
beforehand and made up of fragments selected with 
deliberation and intent. 


II 


Eclecticism stood politically for constitutional mon- 
archy. This put its leader mid-way between the ab- 
solutists and the republicans. In this he followed the 
politics of his master, Royer-Collard. Flattered, as 
his friend Dubois believed,” by his oratorical success 
and by the society of Villemain and his group, Cousin 
came to adopt their political beliefs as a whole. He 
was their philosophical spokesman on the Archives and 
his philosophy was the philosophy of its successor, the 
Globe. Cousin himself found the earliest expression 
of his constitutionalism in his youthful lecture, “ On 
the true principle of morality,” given in his course of 
1817, wherein he had called the granting of the Charte 
the gift of true liberty to France.” During the Sec- 
ond Empire, he invited his readers’ attention to what 
he had said in 1828." Then he had depicted the state 
of the pre-revolutionary monarchy, the indolence and 
corruption of the Court. Invoking the principle of 
Hegelian dialectic, without mentioning Hegel, he dem- 
onstrated that such a condition could lead only to its 


*VBB 1, 14. Ch“ Frag. Philos,” V 200;.and pretatoutes 
ed., 1826, p. xx xiii. 

° Op. cit. xxii. 

” PE 285; “ Philos. Sensualiste,” 3d ed. P. 1856, p. 342. 

* “Philos. Sensualiste” 343. 





THE RISE OF ECLECTICISM ail 


opposite, the Terror. “The Charte,”’ he went on,” 
“has emerged from the two systems, which now have 
had their day, absolute monarchy and democracy.” He 
may be said never to have compromised on this issue, 
which was in itself a compromise. 

Naturally this attitude won him the hatred, as he 
knew, of both reactionaries and republicans.” The re- 
actionaries, who were the Church party attacked him 
on the grounds of anti-nationalism and anti-Catholi- 
cism. | 

The charge of anti-nationalism was concurred in by 
nationalists who were not necessarily Catholic and ab- 
solutists. Thus Quinet called eclecticism an attempt 
to live under the same roof with the enemy.” Secretan 
called it simply an “elegant and free reproduction of 
Hegel’s theology and philosophy of history.” ® It soon 


‘ 


“Td. appendix II, p. 344. Cf. the undiluted version in “ Intro. 
a Vhist. de la philos.,” nouv. ed., P. 1841, p. 428. 

“Cf. Sainte-Beuve; CL VI 152 (“De la retraite de MM. 
Villemain et Cousin). “Les rigoureux observateurs de la na- 
ture humaine lui ont reproché de maintenir orgueilleusement 
certains dogmes qu’une philosophie hardie se croyait en droit de 
contester, de ne tenir aucun compte de l’homme physique et 
naturel dans les opérations de l’esprit, de se soucier moins 
d’étre un vrai philosophe . .. que de vouloir fonder une 
grande école de philosophie . . . et d’aller jusqu’a faire en- 
suite de cette philosophie une doctrine d’Etat, ayant cours et 
influence. Il en est resulté que sa grande et ambitieuse tentative, 
qui mécontentait et inquiétait les hommes religieux et le Clergé, 
ne satisfaisait point d’ailleurs les savants et le petit nombre des 
libres philosophes; elle avait contre elle les croyants, et n’ avait 
pour elle les physiologistes. Mais ce n’est point ceux-ci qui 
lont le plus nui.” 

““Ye la révolution et de la philos.,’ RDM 1831, IV 460. 

Pe edaarhiios. de V; C.." P. 1868, p. 37. 


2I2 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


became a tradition to speak of eclecticism as a foreign 
plant in French soil.” 

Cousin, appreciating the gravity of such a charge in 
France, naturally enough denied it flatly. He was at 
pains to ally himself with Royer-Collard, to Royer- 
Collard’s distaste, says Sainte-Beuve,” Maine de Biran, 
and Descartes. He felt the sting of the chauvinistic 
lash. “It is not patriotism,” he writes,” “it is the 
profound feeling for truth and justice which makes us 
place all philosophy ... under the invocation of 
Descartes’s name.” And again, in a preface dated 
1855, “We did not give the new philosophy foreign 
guides, were they even the sage Reid or the profound 
and virtuous philosopher of Koenigsberg; we placed 
it early under the invocation of Descartes.” ® 

As a matter of fact, when he took his chair he 
placed it under the invocation of Royer-Collard, his 
immediate superior. His one thought, he said,” on 
filling the chair of his master, was to extend his teach- 
ing. That was doubtless Royer-Collard’s one thought 
too. He stayed content with the Scottish philosophy 
until he happened to re-read Descartes’s “ Medita- 
tions’ and suddenly saw the full significance of the 
famous cogito ergo sum. The full significance seems 
to have been that a “scientific”? point of departure 


“FE. g., Gunn; “ Modern Fr. Philos.,” Lond. and N. Y., 1923, 
p. 319. 

CL: NIIT 208: 

Ti 2. 

SRE tO Chr el aag mans 

La AX, OS, 





THE RISE OF ECLECTICISM 213 


was necessary for philosophy and that it was to be 
found in personal existence.” We have seen already 
that even in Germany in 1817, he refused to admit 
that the Germans could influence French doctrines.” 
Yet when he resumed his chair in 1828, he did not 
hesitate to laud the Schellingian philosophy of nature 
and to indicate the advance which France might make 
by inspiring herself to some extent by its ideas, just 
as Germany might not lose through a study of eclecti- 
cism.” This was not his final judgment. 

His final judgment came when he revised his “ Pre- 
miers Essais.”” Then he calmly announced, “ There 
is eclecticism, the thing and the word, in a lesson of 
December, 1816, befcre we could have found it in the 
Alexandrian school, which was then but little known 
to us, or in a deeper study of the doctrine of Leibniz, 
above all before we had the least idea that there was 
then in Germany systems from which we should one 
day be accused of having filched it. We borrowed 
eclecticism from no one. It was born spontaneously 
in our mind from the sight of the striking conflicts 
and hidden harmonies of the three great schools of 
the eighteenth century. . . . Eclecticism is then a doc- 


9) 54 


trine toute francaise and which belongs to us. 


™“ Sur le vrai sens du cogito, ergo sum,’ Archives III 322; 
EtcPE 3%. 

* Letter to Kehl, 15 Nov. 1817, in Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire ; 
Op. cit. I 74. 

*°“Tntro. a hist. de la philos.,” 420. 

* PE 227 n. Cf. Baudrillart; “ Philos. et publicistes contemp- 
orains,’ RDM 1850, p. 58. 


214 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


As a matter of fact, there is almost no Descartes in 
Cousin; there is more Schelling than he was willing 
to admit; and what he took from Royer-Collard, 
Royer-Collard took from Reid. If we wish to be chari- 
table we may attribute the Schellingian elements to a 
developed Biranism. For Cousin had high praise for 
Biran from his first acquaintance with him. In his 
“ Discours d’Ouverture ” of 1816, for instance, he had 
utilized his account of the origins of the idea of cas- 
_ualty and substance.” It may be possible that study 
of these ideas gave rise to his theory of spontaneity 
and reflection, cause and substance, and their interre- 
lations. Cousin was always so sketchy in the presenta- 
tion of his ideas that it is next to impossible to trace 
them with certainty to their source. 

The accusation of anti-Catholicism rested largely on 
Cousin’s defence of the teaching of philosophy in the 
university and of the particular pet ideas of constitu- 
tional monarchy, free speech, a free press, and free- 
dom of worship.” Freedom of worship finally meant 
in 1830, the disestablishment of the Church. A free 
press and free speech had already been denounced by 

® PE 10. 

*“Tntro. a hist. de la philos.,” 431. After the death of 
Jouffroy, the Catholics found another weapon to use against 
C. in the famous passage on J.’s religious doubts. Damiron 
tells of their reaction to it in the preface to his edition of J.’s 
posthumous “ Cours d’Esthétique,” P. 1843. But not all Catho- 
lics were hostile. The Abbé J. Cognat, for instance, in the 
Ami de la Religion, no. 5684, 3 Dec. 1853, on the occasion of the 
2d edition of VBB was highly complimentary, saying that the 


only thing which Cousin lacked—to make him really great, one 
gathers—was faith (p. 547). 





THE RISE OF ECLECTICISM 215 


the Pope in the encyclical Mirart Vos. The teaching 
of philosophy meant irreligion, atheism, pantheism, 
and a host of other abominations. Cousin could plead, 
but in vain, that his philosophy was simply non-relig- 
ious, that it had nothing to say about religion. The 
Abbé Bautain was there to reply, ‘‘ One must be either 
a Christian or an anti-Christian philosopher. The 
mixed position, which the philosophy of to-day is try- 
ing to assume, is not tenable. There is no golden mean 
for eternal truths. . . . If philosophy is not the daugh- 
ter and we shall dare say the handmaid of religion, 
she is its enemy.”” A similar attack was brought 
against Cousin as late as 1851 by Roux-Lavergne in 
his “ Monsieur Cousin et Ses Doctrines” (Bruxelles 
1851). But in this he is depicted as the successor of 
the Philosophers of the Revolution, as one who used 
“the most talent, zeai, and ability’ in the service of 
the “detestable cause ” of “ suppressing the authority 
of religion in order to substitute in its place the impo- 
tence of human opinions” (p. 111). Such charges 
were natural enough. For after all, both philosophers 
and clergymen talked of God, the soul, morality. With 
the same subject matter, there was little to distinguish 
the two disciplines in the mind of the Catholic party. 
Cousin went on record, in the series of speeches made 
in the Chambre des Pairs, April-May 1844,” as say- 
ing that philosophy taught among other things, “ the 

7“ Résumé des Conférences philos. faites au Cercle Catholi- 
que,” Corresp. 1843, III 37. Cf. Forcade; “ Quelques mots sur 


la philos. officielle,’ Corresp. 1843, IV 401, 405. 
® “ Défense de l’université et de la philos.,” P. 1844, p. 67. 


216 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


spirituality of the soul, the freedom of man, the law 
of duty, the distinction of virtue and vice, of merit 
and demerit, divine providence, and its immortal prom- 
ises inscribed in our most intimate needs, in its justice 
and its goodness.” But was this not a religious doc- 
trine? Why then had he said, “The University is in 
no way the Church’s enemy; it is her friend, it is her 
ally; but after all, it is not the Church.”® If it be 
admitted, as the Catholics had insisted, that the Uni- 
versity was not the Church, then it should perhaps be 
concluded that it has no right to meddle with the 
Church’s affairs. If it be admitted that its province 
is to sanction the philosophical teaching of the Church’s 
doctrine, then it should perhaps be concluded that the 
University is the Church. 

The real question—which was more or less avoided 
by Victor Cousin—was the question of where theologi- 
cal and moral problems belonged. Cousin attempted a 
compromise on this question as he had on practically 
every other. The law of June 28, 1833 which called 
forth a book on moral and religious instruction for 
Catholic primary schools, normal schools, and ex- 
amining committees, probably from the hand of Cousin 
himself, provided that among other things moral and 
religious instruction should be given the pupils.” But 


%° “ Discours—Chambre des Pairs—26 déc. 1838 . . . sur la 
renaissance de la domination ecclésiastique,” P. 1839, p. 19. 

” Duvergier XX XIII 234. 

* The book to which I refer is “ Livre d’instruction morale et 
relig. a l’usage des écoles primaires catholiques, élémentaires et 
supérieures, des écoles normales et des commissions d’examen,” 
2d ed., P. 1834. This work—listed under the name of C. in the 






Se ee ee ee, See 


THE RISE OF ECLECTICISM 217 


the parents of the children were to have the power of 
deciding whether their children were to share in these 
lessons or not. This provision, said the optimistic re- 
porter of the law, Rénouard, could offend no one, for 


author-catalogue of the Bibliotheque Nationale—consists of a 
series of excerpts from the OT and NT, followed by a catechism. 

Rénouard, reporting the law, said (Duvergier XXXIII 235 
n. 1), “Charger les instituteurs primaires d’ un enseignement 
relig., ce n’est pas contrarier l’enseignement dogmatique du 
ministre du culte, ni envahir sur les exercises relig. d’aucune 
nature. L’instruction relig., qui se completera dans les exercises 
de piété propre a chaque culte ou a chaque communion, repose 
d’abord sur des notions générales dont aucun scrupule ne peut 
s’offenser, et sans lesquelles, dans les temples comme hors des 
temples, il n’y aurait aucune langue raisonnable a parler a des 
enfans.” 

To judge from C.’s famous report “Sur l’état de I’instruc- 
tion publique dans quelques pays de l’Allemagne et particuliére- 
ment en Prusse,’ P. 1833, his decision to have religious 
instruction in the schools was largely formed from his tour of 
inspection of the schools of Germany. “ The more J think of all 
this, M. le Ministre, the more I examine the schools here, the 
more I converse with the directors of the normal school and 
the councilors of the ministry, the more I am persuaded that 
we must at any cost have an understanding with the clergy for 
the instruction of the people, and make a special carefully 
thought out branch of instruction out of religious teaching in 
our écoles normales primaires” (p. 395). He ends on this lofty 
note, “ Celui qui vous parle ainsi est un philosophe, autrefois 
mal vu et méme persecuté par le sacerdoce: mais ce philosophe 
a le coeur au-dessus de ses propres insultes, et il connait trop 
Vhumanité et l’histoire pour ne pas regarder la religion comme 
une puissance indestructible, le christianisme bien enseigné 
comme un moyen de civilisation pour le peuple, et un soutien 
necessaire pour les individus auxquels la société impose de 
pénibles et humbles fonctions sans aucun avenir de fortune, sans 
aucune consolation d’amour-propre” (p. 396). 

It was this report which was circulated gratuitously in the 
United States, esp. in N. Y. and Mass. 


218 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


there are certain general religious ideas which belong 
to all. The direction of worship, the actual perfor- 
mance of ritual, belong to the various clergies ; morals 
and religious history belong to the laity as well as to 
the clergy. But to-day it seems obvious—and how 
much more obvious it ought to have seemed then— 
that there was a wall at this point which the Catholics 
would have to leap if they were going to live in agree- 
ment with the government. How could they, to whom 
such notions were utterly repugnant, have been ex- 
pected to come sailing over this wall with happy smiles 
when they had spent about 1800 years in building it. 
Were they to be reduced to the empty office of masters 
of ceremonies? 

Cousin must be done the justice of admitting that 
his main desire seems to have been a philosophical 
renaissance in the interests of French civilization. 
That he should have his troubles with the Church was 
natural. To smooth them there existed no well-defined 
principle which one could pronounce without fear of 
ruin. A philosopher must make the best of things and 
so arrange his life as to have a minimum of annoyance. 
He expounded his programme to his young friend 
Bersot, then in Bordeaux, who was having his diffi- 
culties with the clergy. First, he said, give your course 
with that psychological severity which will set aside 
any irritating question ; next avoid all arguments about 
philosophy, and enclose yourself inflexibly in the pro- 
fession of a sincere respect for religion; third, mix in 
nothing .. . laissez tout faire and work in silence; 


~é oe 


‘ 
Y 
; 
; 
{ 
* 





ae 


THE RISE OF ECLECTICISM 219 


fourth, work and think of your theses.” This was a 
programme which might have worked if the clergy had 
not had a real quarrel with philosophy, and if they 
had been content to see their prerogatives usurped by 
men who professed a sincere respect for religion. As 
they were determined to have their own way at any 
cost, the programme was not to prove especially ef- 
fective. Furthermore Cousin was hardly the man te 
laisser tout faire et travailler en silence himself. He 
was trying to further a cause and a cause of compro- 
mise where none was possible. Yet he never appre- 
ciated the impossibility. As late as 1863 when his 
philosophy was petrifying in classrooms and when 
kings who knew not Joseph were coming into power, 
he urged Bersot to show the world that there was 
room between M. Veuillot and M. Littré.” That room 
was supposedly occupied by the philosophy of Cousin. 

The ultra-liberals hated Cousin as much as the re- 
actionaries. Just as the government of Charles X de- 
nounced him to the Prussian Ambassador in Paris and 
thus may have caused his famous arrest ™ so the Jaco- 
bins denounced him before the people. It will not be 

” “Lettres inédites ” 6. 


* Td. 14. Later the room grew more cramped. In 1863, when 
he heard that Bersot was going to print a review of Renan’s 


“Life of Jesus,’ he protested violently on the grounds that it 


was an anti-religious book. He then admitted that his own 
philosophy “confesses its impotence to replace religion among 
human kind. .. . The philosophy of Renan has neither these 
scruples nor these embarrassments, etc., etc.” The whole letter 
is a plea not to rob humanity of its relig. See p. 15. 

“See Bréville; “L’Arrestation de Victor Cousin en Alle- 
magne—1824-1825,” P. 1910, esp. 17. 


220 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


forgotten how Sénécal in ‘‘ L’Education Sentimentale ” 
“execrated M. Cousin even more than the Jesuits for 
eclecticism taught one to draw certitude from the rea- 
son, developed egoism, and destroyed solidarity.” ® But 
the less extravagant liberals than those of fiction felt 
the same contempt for him. Lerminier, for instance, in 
his “Lettres Philosophiques a un Berlinois,’”’ denied 
that Cousin was a philosopher at all.“ He was rather, 
said Lerminier, an erudito. Leroux, who had been 
fairly closely associated with him on the Globe, did 
not find a good word to say for him.” Comte called 
him a “ fameux sophiste.”* Chateaubriand, whose 
opinion, we admit, is not authoritative but interesting 
nevertheless, admired his style but preferred the phil- 
osophical ability of a Pére Ventura.” Sainte-Beuve 
could scarcely mention him without a shudder. 

At the root of the dislike for Cousin among liberals 
is beyond doubt his spirit of compromise. But the 
special cause may be seen in his political philosophy as 
expressed in the tract, “ Justice et Charité,” of which 
mention has already been made. This was one of that 
series of petits traités produced by the Académie des 
Sciences Morales et Politiques in July, 1848, at the 
request of General Cavaignac. This Academy, which 
as the Second Class of the Institut had been sup- 
pressed by Napoleon, had now become so docile as to 

* See ed. définitive (Charpentier), P. 1909, Pt. II, ch. vi, 321. 

° RDM 1832, XI 736, esp. 750. 

* “ Refutation de l’eclectisme,” P. 1839. 

* “ Cours de Philos. Positive,’ P. 1908, III 408. 


Letter to Mme. Récamier, 16 Dec. 1828; in “ Souvenirs et 
Corresp. de Mme. R.,” II 284. 





THE RISE OF ECLECTICISM 221 


accept with zeal the request of the chef du pouvoir 
exécutif that it “ join in the defense of social principles 
attacked by publications of all kinds. Persuaded that 
it is not enough to establish material order by force 
if one does not also establish mental order by the help 
of true ideas, he regards it as necessary to pacify the 
public mind while enlightening it.” The Academy 
agreed with General Cavaignac and replied that it had 
already begun to oppose the popular theories with the 
principles “upon which are founded the rights of 
property, the well-being of families, the liberties of 
peoples, the progress of the world,’ and that each 
member of the Academy “ would congratulate himself 
that in helping the Academy to fulfill its mission, he 
was serving together with the eternal cause of truth, 
the most pressing interests of the country.” 


” Report of the Séance of 17 July 1848, reprinted in “ Justice 
et Charité,” P. 1848. The petits traités were Sas of the 
following books: 

Cousin; “Justice et Charité.” 

Troplong; “ De la Propriété d’ aprés le Code Civil.” 

Hippolyte Passy; “ Des Causes de l’Inégalité des Richesses.” 

Ch. Dupin; “ Bien-étre et Concorde des Classes du Peuple 
Francais.” 

Thiers; “Du Droit de Propriété.” 

Mignet; “ Vie de Franklin.” 

Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire; “De la Vraie Démocratie.” 

Villerme; “ Des Associations Ouvrieres.” 

Portalis; “L’ Homme et la Société, ou Essai sur les Droits 
et les Devoirs Respectifs de !Homme et de la Société.” 

Blanqui; “Des Classes Ouvriéres en Fr., pendant l’année 
1848.” 

Damiron; “ De la Providence.” 

Lelut; “De la Santé du Peuple.” 

Pe tuetiet Chic’ 8. 


222 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


Cousin’s share in this labor of love had a destructive 
as well as a constructive side. The destructive side 
was the demolition of the theory of human equality ” 
and of such doctrines as the right of every man to 
work“ or to aid. It will easily be seen at what social 
theories this blow—which turned out to be not even 
a gentle tap when delivered—was aimed. 

The constructive side of Cousin’s tract was of a 
nature to appeal to employers who knew but little of 
human psychology. It placed the foundation of all 
moral and political systems on the twins, justice and 
charity, each of which would be insufficient if alone.” 
Justice consists in seeing that natural rights are pre- 
served.” But natural rights are limited. They consist 
largely in “liberty ” which is the only thing in which 
all men are equal. The first of all liberties is the 
search for truth™ the second is religion, in so far as it 
does not debase human dignity.” The third seems to 
be the right to property, which is sacred “ because it 
represents the right to oneself (le droit de la personne 
elle-méme).” “We are the first piece of property 
we own.” ™ Surely such a social philosophy hurled at 
the men of 1848 was hardly likely to pacify them. The 
revolution was bein fought neither for academic free- 
dom, nor religious liberty, nor property holdings. 

be fs Sev 

Ne cr Ras 8 & 

id. iry. 

id: 38: 

Mid. 26. 


Md: 
ws 2, 


fa 
‘ 





THE RISE OF ECLECTICISM 223 


Cousin simply refused to grapple with a problem and 
fight it out. Perhaps he was unable to. 

His discussion of charity is as thin as that of jus- 
tice. Though he has been maintaining that every right 
has a correlative duty and vice versa,” he now main- 
tains that the duty of being charitable has not the cor- 
relative right of exacting charity.” The state, he goes 
on to say, ought to aid the unemployed im a certain 
measure, by giving them employment, for instance, on 
public works. But it is false that the workman has 
the right to work, for only those things are rights 
which one can assure by force.” What the state owes 
to its citizens, in fine, are (1) aid and protection for 
the preservation and development of their physical life 
—as in infant asylums; (2) aid for their intellectual 
life; (3) aid for their moral life; (4) correction and 
punishment of criminals.” Did Cousin honestly think 


” This was surprisingly viewx jeu in 1848. Dupont de Ne- 
mours eighty years before in another little tract—directed 
against and not in favor of the government then in power— 
used exactly the same clichés, such as the reciprocity of rights 
and duties. See his éloge of Quesnay: “De |’Origine et des 
progrés d’une science nouvelle (1768),” in the series, ‘“ Physi- 
ocrates,”’ ed. by Eugéne Daire, Ist pt., P. 1848, p. 342, the same 
year, it will be observed, as the appearance of “ Just. et Ch.” 
On the other hand, /’Egalitaire, a “journal de |’organisation 
sociale,” appearing in May 1840, echoed the same thought. 
“ Droit et devoir, parties d’un méme tout, principe indivisible: 
voila en deux mots tout l’ordre social.” But lEgalitaire de- 
duced from this formula not constitutional monarchy, but 
Babouvism. 

psustvet Ch.7- At: 

D Ld N AT: 

ed. a7. 


224 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


that men who had been listening to Lamennais, Eglan- 
tin, Leroux, and had actually sent Louis-Philippe scur- 
rying away for shelter, would be persuaded by such 
assertions? Was he hoping that the prestige of his 
position would lend conviction to his arguments? It 
seems almost unbelievable that he should have ex- 
pected even a courteous hearing. The publication of 
this famous philosophical bull is one of the best symp- 
toms of the state of academic philosophy of this period. 


Til 


Besides its political affiliations, the philosophy of 
Cousin had definite esthetic preferences. Cousin was 
himself what might have been called a classicist, were 
one to judge from the lectures on the beautiful. For he 
believed ® that the reason and not the sensibility was 
the faculty which perceived the beautiful. He believed 
moreover that above the beauty of the world there was 
an ideal beauty. “ The ideal resides neither in an in- 
dividual nor in a collection of individuals. Nature or 
experience furnishes us the occasion to conceive it, 
but it is essentially distinct from nature. For him who 
has once conceived it, all the aspects of nature, how- 
ever beautiful they be, are not the simulacres of a su- 
perior beauty which they do not realize. Give me a_ 
beautiful action, I shall imagine a still more beautiful 
one. The Apollo himself admits more than one criti- 
cism. The ideal retreats unceasingly as one approaches 
it. Its last term is in the infinite, that is in God; or 


“VBB 138. 





—- 


THE RISE OF ECLECTICISM 225 


to speak more truly, the true and absolute ideal are 
nothing other than God Himself.” Art thus is not 
an imitation of nature.” Its aim is rather an expres- 
sion of a Platonic ideal.” Whence follow certain start- 
ling conclusions. “True beauty is ideal beauty, and 
ideal beauty is a reflection of the infinite. Thus, art 
is itself essentially moral and religious; for, unless it 
fails to obey its own laws, its peculiar genius, it ex- 
presses throughout its works the eternal beauty. En- 
chained on all sides to matter by inflexible bonds, work- 
ing upon inanimate stone, upon uncertain and fugitive 
sounds, upon words of a limited and finite significance, 
art communicates to them, with precise form which is 
addressed to such and such a sense, a mysterious 
character which is addressed to the imagination and 
to the soul, snatches them away from reality and car- 
ries them off gently or violently into unknown regions. 
Every work of art, whatever be its form, small or 
great, pictures, sung or spoken, every work of art, 
truly beautiful or sublime, throws the soul into a grace- 
ful or severe reverie which lifts it towards the infinite. 
The infinite is the common end towards which the soul 
aspires on the wings of the imagination as of the reason, 
by the road of the true and the good. The emotion 
which the beautiful produces turns the soul in this di- 
rection ; it is this beneficial emotion which art procures 
for humanity.” * 


4 Td. 167. 
mutt i 75. 
e id, 't70. 
Td. 186. 


16 


226 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


In spite of certain resemblances between Cousin’s 
vocabulary and that of the Romantics, there is no in- 
timate logical connection between their zesthetics. Cous- 
in’s theories led him to praise the works of Corneille, 
Racine, Boileau, Lesueur, Poussin, Le Lorrain, Cham- 
pagne. It led him to make the absurd statement that 
“sreat beauty was absent [from the sculpture of the 
middle ages] and taste was lacking.” In architecture 
he admitted little if anything after the Renaissance, 
forgetful of the architecture of Louis XVI, though, let 
us grant, sensitive to the vulgarity of such buildings as 
the Madeleine, The influence of Royer-Collard’s pro- 
fessed love for the 17th century is obvious in all of 
Cousin’s zsthetic judgments. He loves the calm and the 
dispassionate, the grand line, organ tones, sublimity, 
impressiveness. 

Cousin’s theory of ideal beauty is derived from Win- 
kelmann and Quatremeére de Quincy. Winkelmann had 
said in the French translation, “ Supreme beauty re- 
sides in God. The idea of human beauty is made perfect 
by its conformity and harmony with the supreme being, 
with this being which the idea of unity and indivisibility 
makes us distinguish from matter. This notion of beauty 
is as a substance abstracted from matter by the ac- 
tion of fire, like a spirit which seeks to create for itself 
a being in the image of the first rational creature formed 
by the intelligence of the divinity. . . . All beauty be- 
comes sublime by unity and simplicity: beauty imprints 
the quality of the sublime on all which acts and 


Jd seati nek: 


THE’ RISE OF ECLECTICISM 227 


99 89 


speaks. Similar doctrines were found by Cousin 
not only in Plato and Plotinus, but also in his contem- 
poraries in Germany. Both Hegel and Schelling had 
seen a supernatural significance in Beauty. While the 
former had esteemed it as a sensuous manifestation of 
the Absolute, the latter had made its production the 
very purpose of the natural order. 

Omitting from our discussion Plato and Plotinus, 
there was between the Schellingian and Hegelian zs- 
thetics the widest of breeches. For whereas to Hegel 
the beautiful was necessarily a thing of calm and repose, 
a whole; to a Schellingian it was a thing of restlessness 
and might indeed be a fragment. For Hegel’s Absolute 
was a finished product, after all, and its manifestation 
in sensuous guise would be a manifestation of some- 
thing as finished as anything sensuous could be. The 
doctrine of Cousin rested here. The beautiful was an 
ideal, not a real thing. It was the image of an abstrac- 
tion, not in any opprobrious sense, but in a Platonic 
sense, that of Winke!mann. There was no doubt some- 
thing very elevating in this doctrine, particularly in the 
opinions of men who could admire whole-heartedly the 
works of David and his group. 

Now Cousin thought that his philosophy was the 
philosophical expression of the spirit which Mme. 
de Stael and Chateaubriand had brought into litera- 
ture.” We of to-day would suspect this new spirit to 
be the spirit of the Romantic movement. And indeed 


° “ Fist. de l’art de l’antiquité,” tr. by M, Hubert, P. 1781, 


i130. 
° V BB iii, 


228 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


Stendhal in his defence of Romanticism, “ Racine et 
Shakespeare” “ and Emile Deschamps in his preface 
to the “ Etudes Francaises et Etrangéres ’” consider 
Cousin as the spokesman for the youth of their time. 
But what he taught was the very opposite of what “ Ra- 
cine et Shakespeare”’ taught. What had Romanticism 
to do with ideal beauty, Romanticism which was so 
highly in favor of the “natural” with all its incon- 
sistencies and loose ends? 

Stendhal was very definite in his opposition to any 
doctrine of ideal beauty, as anyone might expect who 
appreciated his affiliation with the logic of Tracy and 
the psychology of Cabanis. “ A very sad thing, which 
is perhaps a truth, is that sdeal beauty changes every 
thirty years, in music.” 

For Tracy an abstract idea as an autonomous entity 
was achimera. For Cabanis the beautiful, which did not 
especially occupy his attention, could be nothing other 
than a physiological function. So Stendhal maintained 
that there was nothing other than a physiological basis 
for such an esthetic experience as musical pleasure.” 
The notion that the exquisitely refined beauty of music 
should grow out of the “tension of the auditory 
nerves” was quite in keeping with the tenet of the 

* Ed. Calmann-Lévy, ch. vii 65. 

” Reprint of the Bibl. du Romantisme, p. 25. 

8“ Vie de Rossini,’ P. 1824, p. 12: Ci. “ Lettres ) 7. sur le 
célébre compositeur J. Haydn,” P. 1814, letter XIX and reply, 
214; “ Promenades dans Rome,” P. 1829, II 437; “ Hist. de la 
Peinture en Italie,” P. 1817, I 131. 

*< Rossini” 15; Haydn,” letter (ADS esp. aa) eee 


Amour,” P. 1822, II frag. 73, p. 222. 
* “ Rossini” 15. 


THE RISE OF ECLECTICISM 229 


new school that the grotesque and the sublime should 
be united, as Victor Hugo had preached, a la Schelling, 
in the preface to “‘ Cromwell” (1827). But Stendhal’s 
fiction, if not his essays, is a constant exemplification 
of this very theory, softening perhaps the word “ sub- 
lime.” I do not maintain that Stendhal held any well 
articulated theory about the matter, for his interest in 
metaphysics did not go beyond the Idéologues. Nor 
did his Romanticism prevent his ridiculing the Romantic 
high-priest, Schlegel.” But if the Romanticists in 
France are the new school, and if defenders of the 
new school are Romanticists, Stendhal should certainly 
be reckoned among them. 

The theory of the union of the sublime and the gro- 
tesque is paralleled in Schelling’s doctrine of the fecund 
union of the positive and the negative. But accompany- 
ing this doctrine of the fertility of contradiction was 
the doctrine of growth in time. Schelling was one of 
those men, like Ballanche, who believed that change is 
not a catastrophe but a blessing. That belief of course 
was again cardinal in the Romantic creed, for they had 
to defend their departure from accepted patterns. If 
change was evil, then Romanticism fell. It is easy to 
see why Catholics should have opposed Romanticism. 
It is harder to see how Cousin should have been asso- 
ciated among them. 

The Globe became one of the champions of the new 
movement. The Globe began to appear during Cousin’s 
imprisonment in Germany and almost immediately took 


«Frist. de la Peinture,” II 70 n. 1. 


230 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


up the Romantic cause. Cousin’s pupil, Jouffroy, was 
partly responsible for this attitude, for in an early ar- 
ticle on “Modern Eclecticism”” he argued that, 
among other blessings, eclecticism was going to bring 
about a reconciliation between the Romantic and the 
Classic in literature, a typically Cousinian task. But 
already one of his colleagues had gone further than 
that and had stated that—properly defined—Romanti- 
cism should triumph.” 

The proper definition of “ Romanticism,” for the 
Globe, turns out to be political and explains why Cousin, 
in spite of his written words, can be classed among de- 
fenders of Romanticists or admired by them. For the 
one point on which such different writers as Stendhal, 
Hugo, Manzoni, Nodier agree, says this article, is their 
hatred of routine; their one common goal is liberty. 
In Romanticism only is there “life, activity, a forward 
movement.”” In another article signed L. V., “ L’In- 
dépendence en matiére de gout” (2 Apr. 1825), the 
Romanticists are treated as the encyclopedists of the 
literary revolution. In “ The Situation of Romanticism 
on the First of November 1825” (29 Oct. 1825, II 
919), Romanticism is said to be “no more a genre than 
Protestantism is a religion; its beliefs, its theories, are 
all negative; and it is between routine and indepen- 
dence, between immobility and movement, that one must 
choose. ... In a word, because during one epoch 

* Globe g Apr. 1825; I 458. 

* “Tu Romantique,”’ signed “O” in the Globe of 24 Mar. 


1825, I 424. Des Granges says that “O” was Duvergier de 
Hauranne in his “ Le romantisme et le critique,’ 236. 





THE RISE OF ECLECTICISM 239i 


things were well done in one manner, is it impossible 
at another epoch to do well differently? And whereas 
all changes, ought literature alone to remain immobile 
and petrified? ‘There is the whole question.” What- 
ever definition of Romanticism may be given by various 
critics, the doctrine itself is simple “ freedom, the direct 
imitation of nature; it is originality.” 

What has become of Cousin’s abstract beauty? 

Obviously it would be next to impossible for beauty 
to reside in a non-temporal idea and at the same time 
for art to occupy itself with a direct imitation of na- 
ture, as Cousin saw. The Globe must not be burdened 
with the responsibility of orthodox eclecticism. Yet 
it was the paper of Cousin’s philosophic and political 
party. There can be no denying that. Furthermore 
Jouffroy espoused Romanticism fairly warmly. To him 
Romanticism was simply the reasonable consideration 
of the purpose of works of art. The beautiful, he main- 
tained“ was indeed lodged in order and proportion, 
as the Classicists had maintained. But there are two 
kinds of order, that which is the result of habit, the 
daily repetition of the usual aspect of things, and that 
which is the adjustment of means to end. Believing 
that all things have their peculiar end, Jouffroy inferred 
that to some degree the beauty of an object or a work 
of art depended on its adaptation to its end. Once, he 
says, that the public understands the end of the drama 
to be amusement, it will accept tragedies in prose and 
plays in which the unities are disregarded.” But there 


”“ Cours d’esthétique ” 60. 
a aia. 


232 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


is a higher kind of order, which is the relating of an 
object to our emotions in such a manner that we sym- 
pathize with it. In Jouffroy’s own words, “ The beauti- 
ful is that with which we sympathize in human na- 
ture, expressed in natural and perceptual symbols.” ” 
Our sympathy results from the fact that all crea- 
tion, however material, is, as in Leibniz, the mani- 
festation of an inner activity, a force.” This brings 
about a true unity of nature, in spite of the hier- 
archy of beings from the stone to man. The notion 
of Cousin, that in the contemplation of an invisible and 
abstract form—whatever that may mean—there is an 
experience of beauty, thus finds a direct contradiction 
in the esthetics of his pupil. Moreover, Jouffroy in- 
sists that in a work of art the expression must be in 
natural symbols and not in mere convention.™ But for 
all this he was not a passionate Romantic. He was al- 
most incapable of passion in any form. Yet to read 
some of his letters is enough to show one that he had 
in him all the raw materials of the most fervent of the 
new school. “ As for me,” he wrote for instance to 
Boucley (18 July, 1822), “I take an infinite pleasure 
in suddenly breaking the direction of my destiny, and 
in brusquely making a new life for myself; the ma- 
terial inconveniences which may result from it are as 
so many powerful motives which push me towards it 
and double the charm which attracts me. I love to 
mae fe Rah te 


* 1a. ' 280, 270, 
Pd, 230: 


a ey 
“SRE Se rene eg a 


of) 





THE RISE OF ECLECTICISM 233 


despise them, to disdain them, to crush them under 
foot, to offer them as a sacrifice to the dignity of my 
liberty.” ™ It might be Byron or Chateaubriand talking. 

The sympathy which the early Romantics found for 
Cousin and which Cousin found for them later, comes 
not from any logical coherence between their ideas and 
his, but from political reasons. Both Cousin and the 
Romanticists were being accused by the Classicists of 
anti-nationalism.”” Whatever Cousin’s ideas might im- 
ply, the reactionaries and the ultra-liberals would not 
permit them to imply classicism. Neither his followers 
nor his opponents could tolerate that. That is as pro- 
found a reason as I have been able to discover why he 
should have been aligned with one group rather than 
with the other. 


IV 


The most important of Cousin’s pupils were two men 
who departed most widely from his doctrines, Theodore 
Jouffroy and the Abbé Bautain, whom with Damiron 
he had selected as the most interesting of his early 


*4“ Corresp. de Th. Jouffroy,” P. 1901, p.- 333. 

7° See the mock “ Campagne Littéraire” with its quotation 
from the Constitutionnel in the Globe of 2 Feb. 1826, III 096. 
Curiously the liberals of the Minerve took much the same atti- 
tude as the Catholics. They were troubled by their devotion to 
Mme. de Staél, but did not grow enthusiastic over the new 
movement in literature. Their plan was for the Germans to 
study the French “savans artifices de la composition et du 
style,” and for the French to enrich themselves with German 
“grandes et belles idées.” See La Minerve Francaise, 1818, IV 
57, an article on German literature. Cf. the discussion of 
Romanticism and classicism in Balzac’s “ Illusions Perdues.” 


234 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


106 


auditors.”” The Abbé Bautain’s importance was shown 
not so much in the development of philosophic ideas, 
as in their application. He attempted the introduction 
of what he thought were Kantian notions into the the- 
ology of Rome. The result was held to be destructive 
of orthodoxy and he was made to recant. Jouffroy had 
a similar experience with religion, but since he was not 
in orders he was not subject to papal discipline. 

Bautain’s road to philosophy led through Strasbourg 
where the interest in Kant and mysticism were equally 
strong. His particular doctrine, fidéisme, was an at- 
tempt, as he said himself, to explain scientifically the 
teachings of Christianity.” He refuted, as he thought, 
not only the philosophies of Condillac, of the Scottish 
school, of Cousin—the three main philosophies of the 
time—but also Lamennais’s version of the doctrine of 
common-sense. This doctrine it was safe to refute, for 
its author had been condemned a few years before—in 
1832 and 1834—for indifferentism and for freedom of 
conscience, Bautain held that Lamennais’s doctrine was 
not a true philosophy, for it established no scientific 
principle and prevented the acquisition of one. More-_ 
over, it nullified the possibility of evidence; it degraded 
human intelligence; and it destroyed voluntary assent 
in questions of morals. It was not Catholic, for it sub- 
stituted common-sense for the authority of God; it 
claimed that faith was owing to common-sense whereas 
it is due to God alone; it confused special revelation and 
NOP EI Sas: 


* See the dedication of his “ Philos.-Psychol. Expérimen- 
tale,” Strasbourg et P., 1830. 





THE RISE OF ECLECTICISM 20 


sacred tradition with a “ pretended general revelation.” 
It was not in accordance with Christian morality, for 
Christian morality urges man to shun the crowd, and 
affirms that common-sense is as nought before divine 
wisdom.” 

Bautain’s attack on the schools of Condillac and of 
Cousin are not less severe, though much briefer. The 
doctrines of Condillac, he maintained, were outworn. 
His statue was not recognized as a faithful portrait of 
themselves by men of the nineteenth century, Activity 
is the rallying cry of the new schools. Since sensational- 
ism does not satisfactorily explain activity, it is easily 
refuted.” The Scottish school, the school of Royer- 
Collard, is cast off for similar reasons; it does not ex- 
plain enough. Though concerned with the Ego, it tells 
us nothing about the soul. It does not explain why 
the soul is joined to a body, and so on. As for Eclecti- 
cism, it is rejected by Bautain because of its vagueness 
and incoherence.” It gives no absolute criterion of 
truth and falsity, good and evil,” for all points of view 
and all actions have their legitimate place in the uni- 
versal scheme. Cousin, who declaimed against the base- 
ness of sensationalistic ethics, sees himself the apostle 
of a theory in which “it is the result which decides 
right and wrong; it is success which proves legiti- 


99 112 


macy. 

18 Td. lvii. The reader will notice the corroboration of our 
remark in the section of Ch. IV on Royer-Collard, that the 
doctrine of common-sense was a “ democratic gesture.” 

eS 1d, Lexi: 

ids 1 KMRL 

ms Td, 1 xxxiv. 

fk KN, 


236 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


If none of these philosophic creeds will help in his 
difficulties, Bautain, like other men, must needs con- 
struct one of his own. He proposes to replace Lamen- 
nais’s philosophy with what was a more bitter attack 
on the efficacy of the reason than Lamennais had ever 
dreamed of. Like Jouffroy, he had known the sting of 
argument, had perhaps felt his faith totter after re- 
turning from Cousin’s lectures. Jouffroy decided to fol- 
low the reason where it led him. Bautain was incapable 
of such conduct. A severe illness is said to have shown 
him the weakness of his philosophical beliefs,” and to 
have been a more potent philosophical weapon than 
formal debate, It performed the same function in his 
life as the news of Mme. Chateaubriand’s death did in 
her son’s. 

Having been moved by this illness, or by some other 
powerful force, such as the personal need of faith, to 
accept the Church’s doctrine in toto. Bautain began by 
pointing out that even rationalistic beliefs rest upon 
certain principles which are assumed, and hence rest 
upon faith. He pointed out what Kant had pointed 
out, that when it comes to fundamentals in metaphysics, 
such as the existence of God, the reason can prove any- 
thing—contradictory things if it will. Why then put 
any credence in it? It is much more to the point to put 
credence in the teachings of tradition. Tradition seems 
to Bautain to be the only alternative to rationalism— 
largely because he felt that in demolishing the other 
reigning philosophies he had demolished all other pos- 
sible philosophies. His account of tradition is not dif- 


™ Ferraz; Op. cit. 310. 





THE RISE OF ECLECTICISM 237 


ferent from Bonald’s. God has implanted language in 
man, which when comprehended reveals His divine 
commandments and His being.“* The question might 
be asked how wé are to distinguish between the Hebraic- 
Christian tradition, and the Indian, the Chinese, the 
Egyptian, the Hellenic-Roman traditions, But such a 
question, though answered by Lamennais’s doctrine of 
common-sense, is not touched by Bautain. He seems to 
feel that the mere proof of the reason’s impotence in 
fundamental problems is implication that tradition, di- 
vinely inspired, is self-illuminating and self-critical. 

The Vatican did not share Bautain’s enthusiasm for 
his doctrine. Close upon its condemnation of Lamen- 
nais, in 1840 to be exact, the Abbé Bautain was asked 
by Gregory XVI to recant. He was asked to subscribe 
to the following propositions: 

(1) Reason can prove with certitude the existence 
of God and the infinity of His perfection. Faith, gift 
of Heaven, is posterior to revelation; it cannot there- 
fore be proposed to an atheist in proof of the existence 
of God. 

(2) The divinity of the Mosaic revelation is proved 
with certitude by the oral and written tradition of the 
synagogue and Christianity. 

(3) The proof drawn from the miracles of Jesus 
Christ, perceptible and striking to eye-witnesses, has 
in no way lost its force or its power for subsequent 
generations. We find this proof in all certitude in the 
authenticity of the New Testament, in the oral and 
written tradition of all Christians. It is by this double 


“4 Bautain; Op. cit. II 206. 


238 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


tradition that we should demonstrate it to those who re- 
ject it or who, without admitting it as yet, desire to 
believe in it. 

(4) We have not the right to expect of an unbeliever 
that he admit the resurrection of our divine Saviour, 
before having given him certain proofs of it; and these 
proofs are deduced from the same tradition by the 
reason. 

(5) Upon these divers questions, reason precedes 
faith and ought to lead us to it. 

(6) However weak and obscure the reason may have 
become because of original sin, there remains to it 
sufficient clearness and force to guide us with certitude 
to the existence of God, to the revelation made to the 
Jews by Moses, and to the Christians by our adorable 
Man-God.”” 

Bautain subscribed as requested. 

What he subscribed to was in part the truth of what 
Lamennais had been teaching in his early years. The 
one sort of testimony which Gregory XVI adduced was 
tradition and the one explanation of tradition which he 
had to offer was the explanation offered by the Tra- 
ditionalists. Tradition was the passing on of revealed 
truth. The main point of Traditionalism was of course 
omitted by the Pope, for obvious reasons, that is, the 
identity of tradition and language. So Bautain, with 
his philosophy of faith behind him, declared that faith 
told him that faith was weaker than reason, just as he 
had once taught that reason told him that she was 
weaker than faith. 


45 “ Fnchiridion ” 1622, 


| 





THE RISE OF ECLECTICISM 239 


Besides having to subscribe to the articles mentioned 
above, Bautain had to promise never to teach that the 
reason, unaided by faith, could not demonstrate the 
existence of God or the immortality of the soul—two 
Kantian principles—nor provide motives of credence 
for the toughest minded sceptic. It was a triumph in 
words for Bautain’s rationalistic enemies. In the cen- 
tury of science the Church had no intention of appearing 
less rationalistic than the general run of mankind. 

Bautain spent the rest of his life as a teacher of 
theology in Paris, doing his utmost to ruin the prestige 
of philosophy, his own undoing. 

The direction of his fellow, Jouffroy, was, as we have 
suggested, in a direction opposite to that of Bautain. 
The famous passage from his posthumous ‘‘ Nouveaux 
Mélanges Philosophiques”’ (P. 1842, 111-116) which 
describes his conversion to scepticism, as Wm. James 
calls it in his “ Varieties of Religious Experience,” 
shows a reader how deeply he felt the need of philo- 
sophic enlightenment and how real a guide it was in 
his life.” He had none of Cousin’s ambitiousness, 
in spite of the prominence of his name and his teach- 


"6 For a Fr. appreciation of this passage, see Caro’s “ Théo- 
dore Jouffroy,” RDM, 1865, p. 340. This is one of the best 
accounts of J.’s personality and opinions which I have found. 
Cf. also Taine’s “ Philos. Classiques,” 208. It should be men- 
tioned that Dubois, who knew J. personally, insisted that he 
died a Christian, believing in God and the immortality of the 
soul. His reasons for this statement include the following: 
“He repeated a score of times that the philosophy compre- 
hended and hidden under the symbols of Christianity would 
not be surpassed ; he loved and depicted with love the ceremony 
of Christian worship.” See Dubois; Op. cit. xlviti. 


240 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


ings. He was content to be an editor and a teacher. 
He is undoubtedly one of the most attractive figures 
of this period. 

In 1819 he wrote to his friend and fellow pupil, 
Damiron, that all the prayers in the world could not 
make life pleasant, “Life will remain for me,” he 
said, “and for all those who enjoy it, what it ought 
to be, a little hell constructed expressly for the reign 
of virtue where happiness cannot slip in.” This sen- 
tence might be used as the keynote of his philosophy, 
a philosophy which can account for virtue but not for 
happiness, for accuracy but not for truth. 

Like Bautain, he is convinced of the relative impo- 
tency of the reason. That absolute truth exists, he 
does not deny™ but he insists that the possession of 
it is a prerogative of God alone. Human beings believe 
that they participate in the knowledge of absolute 
truth” but whether they are justified in their belief 
is a question worth studying. They are justified if the 
intelligence of human beings is so made as to reflect 
reality faithfully. It is obvious that we believe in our 
intelligence ; the fact, says Jouffroy cannily, that we dis- 
tinguish error from accuracy is truth enough that we 
do not mistrust it.” But again the question of our 
right to this belief arises and there we meet an obstacle. 
The only judge of intelligence is intelligence itself; it 

™" Lair; “Corresp.” letter of § Jan. 1810, p. 228. 

™ “Diu Scepticisme,” in “ Mél. Philos.” 231. 

™ Td. 233. Cf. “De l’organisation des sciences philos.,” in 
“Nouv. Mel.” 216. 


dae aa 
1 Td. 236. 


OS Le ee 


a 





A, 
7 
j 
i 


THE RISE OF ECLECTICISM 241 


would be strange to convict a man of perjury on the 
testimony of a liar. 

The basis of all reasoning is “a blind act of faith” ™ 
just as it was in Bautain minus the blindness. Belief 
turns out to be instinctive, doubt rational, a result which 
would have led Jouffroy to some of the conclusions of 
our contemporary Freudians, anticipated in a measure 
by Schopenhauer, if not by earlier thinkers. Jouffroy 
in his published works does not seem to have developed 
his result beyond this essay on scepticism. But there 
are hints here and there of an anti-intellectualistic turn 
of mind which are worth bringing to light here simply 
because of their reappearance as full-fledged doctrines 
later on in the century. 

In the first place the very notion of eclecticism is an 
admission of the individual’s impotency in philosophic 
research. It is not anti-intellectualistic in the sense of 
attacking the intellect as such, but in the sense of at- 
tacking the individual’s intellect. To the eclectic, as 
to Hegel, the individual philosopher sees only part of 
the truth ™ except when he is an eclectic or an Hegelian. 
This does not mean that eclecticism and Hegelianism 
are identical. The eclectics, as far as I know, did not 
preach the development of systems towards eclecticism, 


nor even the steady absorption of one system into its 


opposite in time. Eclecticism might have been produced 

at any point in history, if the philosopher with suf- 

ficient brains had existed to produce it. To continue 
Pn td,-238. 


13 Te I’hist. de la philos.,” in “ Mél. Philos.” 252, 260. Cf. 
“Nouv. Mél.” 16. 


17 


242 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


our exposition, a part of the truth is never enough, and 
Jouffroy is more frank than Cousin in stating this. 
For Cousin had his doctrine of spiritualism to inculcate 
into the minds of the young, whereas Jouffroy was freer 
to roam as he would. 

Eclecticism reposed in part, as we have said, on 
Reid’s doctrine of common-sense. Jouffroy was a much 
closer student of the Scottish philosophy than his 
teacher. Having translated both Reid and Dugald- 
Stewart, he had at least read them. Now the doctrine 
of common-sense was a candid avowal not merely of 
the individual’s inability to reach complete truth, but 
of the individual’s need to rely on the race even for 
fragmentary truth. That feeling that the race does 
not err even when the individuals who compose it do, 
is prominent in almost all of Jouffroy’s writings. He 
believes in it to the point of making philosophers merely 
the mouthpieces of the people, as if they were not of 
the people. Voltaire, for instance, he proclaimed in the 
Globe,” would never have been a philosopher if he 
had been born in the seventeenth century—he means 
of course in time to be mature at its height. For, 
he says, “philosophy is the judgment of the people 
and in the seventeenth century the people believed 
and did not judge. . . . All the ideas of which Vol- 
taire and his friends are accused, could not have 
been entertained by them fifty years earlier; they 
are not their ideas, but the ideas of their time. 
Luther would have been a saint or perhaps a pope © 
a hundred years earlier.” Or again, when he dis- — 


415 Jan. 1825, p. 267; “ Mel. Philos.” 46. 








THE RISE OF ECLECTICISM 243 


cusses in a famous essay how dogmas end,” it is 
seen to be through the interaction of ideas and so- 
ciety. When he reflects on the philosophy of history, 
he concludes that the object of history is “ the develop- 
ment of human intelligence.” All that a philosopher 
can do is to be a precursor and promoter of social 
doctrines.” “What Bossuet called providence,” he 
says, “others destiny, others the force of circum- 
stances, is the fatality of intellectual development.” 
This intellectual development is read in the works not 
only of philosophers but of poets and of other artists.” 
When he discusses religion, he finds it inextricably 
bound to politics, customs, ethics, a whole civilization.” 

Perhaps it is Jouffroy’s belief in a common-sense 
which leads him, as Lamennais’s belief in a common tra- 
dition led him, to internationalism, “In politics it is 
no longer a question to-day,” he wrote in 1826,” “ of 
the balance of Europe, but of the future of humanity. 
Europe’s civil wars are over; the rivalry of the peoples 
who compose Europe is dying out, as died the ri- 
valry of the Greek city-states under Alexander, and 
as was effaced the diversity of the French provinces 
under royal domination. . . . The minister who, first 
to emerge from the narrow ideas of patriotism, 
will lead the politics of his country not towards 


™ Globe 24 May 1825; “ Mél. Philos.” 3. 

% “ Mél. Philos.” 56. 

a 10:68. 

ud. 7%. 

dave. ot. Nouv. Mel.” 30. 

* “De état actuel de l’humanité,” “ Mél. Philos.” 106, 
ea IAl. 


244 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


the worn-out end (le but usé) of its aggrandise- 
ment and the abasement of its neighbors, but to 
the profit and in the direction of the union of Europe 
and of the civilization of the world by the union 
and by the ideas of Europe, that minister will be the 
statesman of the nineteenth century. He will make for 
the power and the glory of his country, precisely because 
he will have abjured the dogma of patriotism.’ Such 
a doctrine had of course been in a narrower form the 
program of the French Revolution. It was the program 
of the international revolutionists of 1848.™ 

It might not be out of place to indicate briefly what 
Jouffroy understood by this ‘ common-sense” which 
made humanity one solid fraternity. The simplest idea 
of common-sense is those self-evident principles in 
which mankind finds the test both of its judgments and 
its conduct.” These principles form a sort of philoso- 
phy anterior to philosophy in the strict sense of the 
word,” a philosophy whose solutions are always more 
inclusive than those of individual thinkers. It does 
more than either spiritualist or materialist, for it af- 
firms the existence of both matter and spirit; it does 
more than empiricist or rationalist, for it affirms the 
validity of both sensory experience and the reason. 
Thus individual philosophies are not, in Jouftroy’s 
eyes, in contradiction to common-sense, so much as 


Tn spite of the evidence of the text which I have cited, 
Rémusat in his article on J., RDM 1844, VII 424, says that the 
idea of equality and of nationality were profoundly rooted in 
his nature. 

#3 “Tye la philos. et du sens commun,” in “ Mél. Philos.” 157. 

™4 Td. 158. 


oy : 


THE RISE OF ECLECTICISM 245 


they are less than common-sense. They serve to make 
articulate portions of that philosophy in which all men 
believe whether they are thoroughly aware of it or 
not.” This notion of inarticulate philosophies being 
incorporated in certain consistent modes of conduct had 
been worked out most attractively by Hegel in his 
Phenomenologie, but Jouffroy shown no sign of hav- — 
ing read any German philosopher later than Kant. He 
developed the idea less perfectly than his German con- 
temporary, being content with a universal philosophy 
for all mankind, rather than special philosophies for 
various human types. This attitude is worth noting for 
in his remarks about Vico and Herder, he blames Vico 
for finding a universal law for man’s development by 
neglecting the environment and Herder for finding 
particular laws for various nations by neglecting man’s 
inner nature.” Was he not doing just what he had 
accused Vico of? Or did he feel that the catholicity 
of his common-sense philosophy eradicated any sus- 
picion of that error? 

The origin of common-sense is in the very nature of 


intelligence, which is both passively receptive of action 


from without and actively engaged in manipulating the 

impressions it receives.” The whole world affects it 

and it strives to react to the whole world. The man who 

had no philosophy of an articulate nature struggles 

to clarify the vagueness of his impressions, to make 

them significant. He does this spontaneously, as Cousin 
™ Id. 160. 


** “ Bossuet, Vico, Herder,” in “ Mél, Philos.” 87. 
*7“T)e la philos. et du sens commun,” “ Mél, Philos.” 164. 


246 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


had already suggested. Though his conclusions are not 
neat and orderly, they are all-embracing. The philoso- 
pher, who voluntarily and deliberately strives to under- 
stand the world, is forced to a fragmentary account of 
things. But this divorce between philosophy and 
common-sense is not to endure forever.” As soon 
as philosophy turns back upon itself and examines 
its methods, it will wake up to its short-comings and 
set about rectifying its errors. The true method of 
philosophy is not that of Plato, Descartes, Kant, nor 
even of Aristotle—whom Jouffroy often unconsciously 
reproduces—but that of Galileo and Bacon.™ It is the 
patient accumulation of facts before deduction begins. 
It was the method which Jouffroy himself attempted in 
his long study of what he called “ psychology.” 

If common-sense is the repository of the whole 
truth about the world, unlike the individual reason it 
enjoys the prerogative of God. It becomes something 
not unlike Hegel’s Absolute, mutatis mutandis. Since 
it is the characteristic of society, it offers Jouffroy an 
opportunity to develop a metaphysics of socialism for the 
men of 1848. But he does not accept the offer. Indeed 


8 Td. 160. 

9“ Sciences Philos.,” in “ Nouv. Mél.” 97. This point is 
emphasized because Ravaisson seems to feel that J’s. theory 
of the immediate perception of the Ego—the “cause” of psy- 
chic states—precludes the possibility of the Baconian method. 
(Op. cit. 25.) But J. himself says (“ Nouv. Meél.” 211), 
“ Although we have a perpetual and immediate consciousness 
of the principle which is we ... it is nevertheless evident 
that it is only by the study of these numerous phenomena which 
it produces or which it experiences that we can acquire an 
extended and precise knowledge of its nature.” (Cf. id. 213.) 





eg 
Ben 


THE RISE OF ECLECTICISM 247 


in some sentences he seems to avoid socialism of any 
form. “Society,” he says, for instance, in his “ Prob- 
lem of Human Destiny,” “™ “is only a collection and the 
end of a collection can have its justification only in the 
elements which compose it.” But how short a step it 
was to a veritable mysticism in which individuals are 
integrated not only emotionally but intellectually in 
Society, just as souls, according to a thinker like 
Récéjac ™ are bound together in the Absolute, or as the 
ethical individual is completed in Royce’s Beloved Com- 
munity. Short as the step was, it was too long for 
Jouffroy’s stride and there remained at the heart of his 
philosophy an intellectual pessimism. 

From the ethical point of view things were perhaps 
more cheerful. Each man, whether learned in philoso- 
phy or not, is held to have within him a conscience 
which teaches him to distinguish good from evil.” It 
is the business of moralists and jurists to harmonize 
their opinions and the opinions of conscience ™ and 
conscience has the right to laugh at ethics and the 
law in so far as it does not deny the bit of truth that 
is in them. But it seems that the conscience will have 
no easy task of making explicit the difference between 


good and evil.” Values do not stalk about the world 


labelled like figures in a newspaper caricature, But 
there happen to be in this world certain objects and 


409 Mél. Philos.” 464. 

™1 “Te la connaissance mystique,” P. 1897, p. 275. 
1“ Te V’eclectisme en morale,” in “ Mél. Philos.” 3090. 
8 Td. 392. 

a 40, 303. 

"5 “<T)u Bien et du mal,” in “ Mél. Philos.” 403. 


248 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


other existents which are either indifferent, helpful, or 
harmful to our determined goal.“ (That we have a 
determined goal is Jouffroy’s primitive idea.) Thus 
good can be defined as the accomplishment of a being’s 
destiny ; evil as its non-accomplishment.™ Consequently 
good and evil are relative. There is however a certain 
harmonizing of particular destinies in ‘“ universal or- 
der.” ** This Aristotelian conception of ethics is taken 
with peculiar seriousness by Jouffroy and applied in 
passing to the question of beauty and ugliness.™ 

It would seem that if all things have a destiny to ful- 
fill which is the will of God, good might be more proba- 
ble than evil. Unfortunately for Jouffroy’s peace of 
mind, all things are an unstable mixture of two anti- 
thetical principles, matter and force, whose struggle is 
life.” Moreover in the accomplishment of a being’s 
destiny, there is bound to occur the sacrifice of some 
other being’s.™ ‘“ Whence it comes that no nature here 
below fulfills its true destiny completely. All things 
perpetually tend. towards it, and are unable not to 
tend towards it. But this tendency is everywhere frus- 

Id. 405. 

7 Td. 406. 

“8 Id. 407. 

Td. 409. J. is not conscious of his resemblance to Aristotle. 
He utilizes the notion of the ends or destinies of things also in 
the beginning of the “Cours de Droit Natural,” P. 1834, I 2, 
where it suggests Montesquieu’s preface and first chapter of 
the “Esprit des Lois,” though J. himself attempts to refute 
Montesquieu. f 


*© Td. 411. (Cf. Cousins’s notion of substance and causality.) 
ian ek 


events, 


THE RISE OF ECLECTICISM 249 


trated; it struggles everywhere and is never entirely 
victorious.” ™ 

Yet this ethics is not Manicheism; it is rather Stoi- 
cism. For evil is not a positive something, It is merely 
imperfection. We humans and the lower levels of life 
alike are struggling to perfect ourselves. We do not 
succeed, it is true, but we do not completely fail.” 
Perhaps this world is but a transition to another.” The 
analogy of moral and intellectual values, of the good 
and the true, is complete. In both realms of human in- 
terest, that which is sought is never completely found. 

Unhappily Jouffroy’s opinions on human destiny are 
lost as are so many of his opinions, but there has been 
preserved in a stenographic report one of his lectures 
touching this subject. There he is as Aristotelian as 
he was in his general moral attitude. Like Aristotle, 


155 


he investigates the lower levels of existence,” finds in 
their essence—or peculiar character—their destiny and 
then investigates man with the same purpose. Like 
Aristotle, he finds that the accomplishment of man’s 
destiny lies in the perfection of his reason.” Like Aris- 
totle, he has a vision of a necessary enchainment of 
but unlike him he despairs of influencing it. 
The gaps in his ethics are however too numerous to be 


filled in by a process of inference and we can only 


157 


lds 

cia. At2. 

44 Cf. “Cours de Droit Naturel,” I 4. 

#8 « Tyestinée Humaine,” in “ Mél. Philos.” 430. 
40. 434+ “ Droit Nat.,” I 38. 

87 « Tyestinée Humaine,” “ Mél. Philos.” 490. 


250 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


guess what his conception of man’s rational perfection 
would be. We know that it would be a development 
away from a religious point of view—which Jouffroy 
believes gives a true but vague and symbolic account 
of things—to the philosophic point of view. Christi- 
anity is the last of the religions. This is the last sen- 
tence in his “ Problem of Human Destiny ” (p. 491). 
But how different he thinks life will be when lived 
rationally, he does not say. Nor does he say why man 
should be expected to be ever more rational than he 
was in 1830. He has faith in the world processes which 
to him, as to so many other philosophers, were impreg- 
nated with human values. Thus he can believe that 
spontaneously there will be produced out of the welter 
of creation, something more fitting to the ideal which 
man has pretended to resemble. 

It was through the prestige of Jouffroy, as well as 
Cousin, that the eclectic school grew to important pro- 
portions in France, but it was rather the doctrines of 
Cousin than those of Jouffroy which prevailed among 
its members. For, with the exception of Jouffroy’s no- 
tion that in introspection the subject has immediate 
knowledge of itself and not merely of its “states,” 
there was scarcely an item of his philosophy which 
would not have caused serious annoyance to anyone 
who preached it. Philosophy, as we have hinted, was 
in a precarious position, in danger of attack from cleri- 


cal and anti-clerical alike. The philosopher, if he was — 


to maintain itself—a condition which all the philoso- 
phers naturally accepted without question—must keep 
midway both parties. “ Work on your theses and keep 


— 


THE RISE OF ECLECTICISM 251 


quiet.” If these theses were developments of Jouf- 
froy’s scepticism, his pessimism, his unconscious Aris- 
totelianism, what good could come of it? Jouffroy did 
not develop them himself. It was all the more im- 
portant that no one else do so, for by 1830 eclecticism 
has become “the official philosophy.” 

The contributions of such men as Damiron, Saisset, 
Paul Janet, to the solution of philosophic problems was 
almost negligible. There was little to do except to re- 
peat in ever greater variety and detail the doctrines of 
the Master, As Charles Adam put it with finality, 
Cousin made philosophy a business of teaching, which 
embarrassed it and impoverished it. In order that it 
might be generally acceptable, he made it timid, humble 
before the Church and he enregimented his professors 
as a bishop does his priests. He borrowed from Catholli- 
cism its dogmatism and its discipline with the great 
difference that Cousin had merely the trammels of a 
doctrine to teach. He supported his attitude not in 
the name of a high moral principle, but upon motives 
of utility and convenience.” Severe as this judgment 
is, it is perhaps not entirely unfair. Cousin was in a 
position in the educational system of his country to de- 
termine who should teach and who should not. One 
would hesitate to say that he used his position un- 
justly, but it is certain that he used it. One has only 
to read Jouffroy’s letters to Damiron to appreciate to 
how great an extent it was necessary for a prospective 
professor of philosophy to be in Cousin’s good graces. 


*8 Adam; “La Philos. en Fr.,” P. 1894, p. 206. 


252 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


There was even a story current to the effect that his 
pride forced Damiron to omit from his edition of Jouf- 
froy’s works the young man’s attribution of his disap- 
pointment in philosophy to his teacher’s youth.™ 
Naturally enough, since the eclectics were for one 
reason or another incapable of aiding the solution of 
philosophic problems, they turned towards the history 
of philosophy for their work. Cousin had on many oc- 
casions sung the praises of the historians and had with 
some justice insisted on the necessity of knowing the 
past if the present was to be properly understood. Con- 
sequently one finds the leader of the school himself 
producing editions of Proclus, Plato, Abelard, Des- 
cartes, Maine de Biran, and a translation of Tennmann’s 
Manual; his followers studying and translating Aris- 
totle, Spinoza, Kant, Bacon, the Scholastics, the Neo- — 
Platonists.” When one turns to the Académie des 
Sciences Morales et Politiques, one finds Cousin’s lead- 













ership as apparent as in the university. The prizes are 
no longer awarded for the decomposition of thought — 
and the determination of the influence of signs on the ~ 
formation of ideas, but for a critical examination of q 
Aristotle’s “ Metaphysics” (1835), the authenticity of — 
the “ Organon” (1837), an exact exposition of Neo- a 
platonism (1829), and the like. This tendency to en- — 
courage work in the history of philosophy rather than — 
in the consideration of special problems lasted well be- — 
yond our half of the century and produced some of the . 


* Leroux; “ Victor Cousin,” Les Contemporains, n. d. 13. 
**° Cf. Ravaisson; Op. cit. 20. 


THE RISE OF ECLECTICISM 253 


best known pieces of French philosophic research. 
Whether this interest in the history of philosophy acted 
to the detriment or to the advantage of French culture 
is not within our province to determine. But surely 
it cannot be denied that it owes its existence to the 
inspiration of Victor Cousin more than of any other 
one man. Moreover, by strengthening the acquaintance 
of French readers with the printed word of such think- 
ers as Kant, Schelling, and Hegel, it was ultimately 
responsible for the welcome and understanding given 
in France to the development of their ideas in the 
work of such men as Renouvier, Bergson, and Taine, 
to select only the most prominent names. Such people 
would have found their inspiration without Cousin; 
that is beyond denial. But they would not have found 
a public capable of understanding them and willing to 
accept them. 


CHAPTER SIX 
THE RIseE oF POSITIVISM 


Curiously enough the philosophy of the first half of 
the nineteenth century which was to survive almost in 
its integrity was not the teaching of an official philoso- 
pher at all, but of a man without any recognized po- 
sition in the learned world, Auguste Comte. Perhaps 
the secret of Comte’s charm for his successors is not 
his originality so much as his clever use of old material 
in a new arrangement. As the main points of positivism 
are known to practically all readers, this chapter will 
be devoted almost entirely to placing them in their his- 
torical setting. Comte must not be imagined to be a 
lonely figure thinking out great ideas which were ahead 
of his time. His philosophy, on the contrary, was a 
much more eloquent expression of the total civilization 
of early nineteenth century France than that of any 
other one man, just as Cousin’s was an expression of 
monarchy @ la Louis-Philippe and Bonald’s of absolu- 
tism. This is meant in a more or less figurative sense. 
I have no intention of suggesting that civilizations and 
political systems have real personalities which express 
themselves in philosophies. 

If one were to scan the civilization of France in our 
period and to ask himself what its dominant character- 
istics were, he would be forced to note at least the 
following: a fairly rapid change of government, the 


254 








THE RISE OF POSITIVISM 255 


rise Of industrialism in the economic scheme, of ro- 
manticism in the esthetic, of ultramontanism in the 
religious, and the increasing success of natural science 
in the purely intellectual. These symptoms were the re- 
sults of various ailments and yet were almost all a 
stimulus to the philosophers of the time. The social 
question with the accompanying political question 
busied the Catholic as well as the atheist; the problem 
of the beautiful or the aim of the arts was as living 
a problem to the eclectic as to the Catholic; even Bal- 
lanche became interested in the labor problem and En- 
fantin, as everyone knows, in the religious. The very 
pervasiveness of these problems was characteristic of 
the period. The critical investigation of human affairs 
was not so specialized as it is to-day. The scientist 
thought that he might well be a metaphysician, often, as 
in the case of Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire, with lamentable 
results." The metaphysician, almost without exception, 
thought that he must be a politician. The politician 
found religion too tempting to be left alone—see the 
works of Benjamin Constant. And the religious was as 
likely as not to produce a book on art. If any of these 
interests dominated and served as a focus for others, 


1T refer, of course, to his “law of universal attraction,’ which 
one can find expounded in his “ Notions Synthétiques, Histori- 
ques, et Physiologiques de la Philosophie Naturelle,” P. 1838, 
p. 3. The fundamental idea (p. 21) in that matter is homogene- 
ous, 7. e., made up of similar elements and becomes diversified 
because of space and time. Diversity thus becomes something 
superficial. The underlying homogeneity seems to the author 
to account for the universal attraction of like to like. 


256 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


it was perhaps the interest in social reconstruction. But 
the interest in science, as we have indicated in an earlier 
chapter, was almost as great and in some cases more 
profound. There was a tradition from the days of 
the Encyclopedia at least, perpetuated in the Institut, 
that science was the one reliable guide to social prog- 
ress, It might be fairer to say that after the French 
Revolution the fashion of looking to political change 
as a method of moral improvement became prevalent— 
even among Catholics. The interest was not in social 
phenomena as such, but in political activity. 

Before the Revolution, changing the political struc- 
ture in accordance with ethical goals was but an un- 
fulfilled desire of certain philosophers who may never 
seriously have entertained it. After a thousand years 
_ or so of a given régime, one voices a hope as a dream 
and not as a possibility. But after the Revolution, po- 
litical changes actually took place and convinced people 
that, given the proper conditions, they could come into 
power. Hence one finds immediately springing up in 
the Assembly, the sprouts of what have turned into 
political parties. It is no doubt unhappily true that 
these parties were as often as not the vague statement 
of personal ambitions, left vague and abstract so as 
to seem impersonal. Such parties had existed under 
the Monarchy too, but not as political parties. By the 
time of Louis-Philippe, they were a tradition, and one 
had every shade of political opinion represented in or- 
ganized groups of men. We have by now become used 
to this phenomenon and disillusioned. It no longer 





THE RISE OF POSITIVISM 257 


seems strange to us to hear one organization maintain 
that a man whom it has selected has some more delicate 
sensitivity to the nuances of right and wrong than a 
man selected by another group. But in the period which 
followed the Revolution, this was a novelty and was 
taken seriously, if not by the politicians themselves, at 
least by their followers. Consequently such apparently 
abstract systems of thought as Ideology had their po- 
litical representation, and even Maine de Biran sat in 
the Chamber. 

It was to Comte’s credit that he insisted upon study- 
ing society as a phenomenon itself and not merely as 
the dependency of other phenomena. More was in- 
volved in this study than appears at first sight. In the 
first place, there was implied the whole conception of 
society as an autonomous entity, analogous to the body 
politic of the Middle Ages. This idea was in essential 
opposition to the eighteenth century conception of so- 
ciety, formed it may be after the analogy of Newtonian 
physics in which the individuals were the focus of at- 
tention like moving particles, each of which continued 
its path until interfered with by another. To men living 
under the Regent or Louis XV, the moral equivalent 
of the first law of motion must have been especially 
attractive and indeed Montesquieu, for one, writes 
politics as if it were what Comte called social physics, 
and as if he believed with Comte that these laws were 
only accidentally a part of mechanics and really applied 
to the whole universe.’ 


>Comte; “ Systéme de Politique Positive” (hereafter “ Pol. 
Pos.”). 3d ed., P. 1890; I 493. 


18 


258 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


But if the eighteenth century did not explicitly in- 
vent the word “sociology,” which Comte introduced 
in his “Cours de Philosophie Positive,” * its thinkers 
had an important share in turning men’s attention to 
its subject matter. The whole notion of human progress 
as opposed to individual progress rested upon the pre- 
supposition of human solidarity. Montesquieu’s inter- 
ests were obviously in the individual in spite of the 
superficial appearance of his masterpiece, but he had 
a vision of societies in the large, for what is the “ Let- 
tres Persanes” but a comment on a single society 
viewed as a structure? It is European moeurs as 
European, not as this European’s and that European’s, 
which Rica and Usbek observe. They have a power of 
generalization which saves them from writing merely 
travel notes. And in the “ Esprit des Lois,” which 
Comte criticizes for its lack of generality, there is, 
as he had to admit,’ a submission of whole civilizations 
to natural laws, such as the law of the influence of 
climates. Had Montesquieu been able to study his sub- 
ject with more disinterestedness, there is no reason 
why he should not have been as self-conscious a so- 
ciologist as Comte. The Physiocrats had a less definite 
conception of society as a unit, studying rather the 
groups within society than society itself. But in Du- 
pont de Nemours’s plea for the study of economics we 
find the significant sentence, ‘“ There is a natural, es- 
sential and general order, which contains the constitu- 

* Hereafter “ Cours.” Ed. Schleicher, P. 1908, IV 132. 


+ Cours? LV) 120; 
°Id. IV 127. 





—— 


THE RISE OF POSITIVISM 259 


tive and fundamental laws of all societies; an order 
from which societies cannot break loose without being 
so much the less societies, without which the political 
state would have less consistence, without which its 
members would be more or less united and in a violent 
condition ; an order which one could not abandon en- 
tirely without producing the dissolution of society and 
soon the destruction of mankind.”* As we say, the new 
science is not so much sociology as economics. But 
the quotation is interesting as a plea for the positive 
treatment of social problems. Dupont de Nemours, by 
the way, attributes the founding of this new science 
to Quesnay’s articles, “ Fermiers”’ and “ Graines ” in 
the Encyclopédie.” More than Montesquieu and the 
Physiocrats, Condorcet was, as Comte admitted, very 
close to Positivism in his “ Esquisses.”* In Germany, 
there were Lessing’s “Erziehung des Menschenge- 
schlechts ” (1780) and Herder’s “ Ideen zur Philoso- 
phie der Geschichte der Menscheit,” both to be well 
known in France later on. In Italy ‘there was Vico, 
studied with profit by Ballanche and popularized by 
Michelet. Each of these men had, to be sure, his own 
peculiar attitude towards the study of society, but no 
one could deny that, with the possible exception of 
Lessing, they did not attempt to formulate its laws. 

°“ Physiocrates,” 1st pt., P. 1846, ed. Eugéne Daire, “De 


l’origine et des progrés d’une science nouvelle” (1768), p. 337. 
*Cf. Comte; “ Cours” IV 138, where the founder of positiv- 


-ism pays his respects to these men. 


®“ Cours” IV 132. Cf. his “ Plans des travaux scientifiques 
nécessaires pour réorganiser la société” (1822). Repr. in “ Pol. 
Pos.” IV, app. 107. 


260 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


One has only to compare their work with that of Bos- 
suet or St. Augustine to see how the movement towards 
positivism was making itself felt. Comte is not entirely 
conscious of his predecessors, but does not refrain from 
citing Kant and Herder as evidence of the tendency 
towards the positive treatment of society,’ although he 
later said,” “I have never read in any language either 
Vico, or Kant, or Herder, or Hegel, etc., I know their 
various works only through some indirect accounts of 
them and very insufficient certain extracts.” 

But there was another current of sociological study, 
what Comte called “social statics,” which went back, 
as he knew, to Aristotle.” Social statics was the analysis 
of society into its units and the description of the units. 
“In a word,” said Comte,” “social dynamics studies 
the laws of succession, while social statics seeks those 
of co-existence.” It was social anatomy, if one will.” 
In the work of the Christian political scientists of the 
Middle Ages, there is all the insistence one could de- 
sire upon the organic unity of the body politic. For 
them the tradition of social unity dates from St. Paul 
and for some of them, such as Dante and the Papal 
group in general, social unity is suprapolitical: it is 
international, Thus society for such thinkers becomes 
humanity, very much in Comte’s sense of the word, 


®“ Considérations sur les sciences et les savans,” 2d art., in 
Le Producteur, 1825, I 365. 

* “Cours” VI, préf. personelle xxvi, dated July 1842. 

Coors 600 Vind eon 

“Td. 1V 192. 

*® Lévy-Bruhl; “ Philos. d’Aug. Comte,” 4th ed., P. 1921, p. 
287. 





8 Rae 


THE RISE OF POSITIVISM 201 


after due allowance has been made for religious dif- 
ferences, the importance of which must not be under- 
estimated. Comte was as generous to the Catholics as 
he was stingy to their opponents, and attributed will- 
ingly to Maistre’s ‘““Du Pape” not only his general 
appreciation of the Middle Ages, but also his interest 
in social order.“ 

There was in the third place, a philosophical ap- 
proach to Comte’s theory of social or human solidarity. 
This was through Lamennais’s treatment of the doc- 
trine of common-sense. Reid’s doctrine in Lamennais 
became traditionalism, it is true, but after all that 
was a difference of application, not of meaning. We 
have seen that in Royer-Collard’s treatment of Reid, 
common-sense was an escape both from the doctrine 
of innate ideas and of sensationalism ; it amounted al- 
most to a kind of transcendental ego. But it was a 
transcendental ego which in Lamennais became incor- 


porated in humanity as a whole and uttered opinions 


which when heard became the standard of truth. The 
personal relations between Lamennais and Comte were 
close.” It is not true that in Comte the voice of the 
people is the voice of God, but it is true that the needs 
of humanity become, if not creative of truth, at least 
determinative of truth’s progress. For instance, he 
makes the development of science a function of human 
needs. Science passes through the theological stage, 


because man would have been discouraged by the pre- 


Ponours: LV oO'n: 
* See Gibson; “The Abbé de Lamennais and the Liberal 
Catholic Movement,” 73, 95. 


262 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


mature apprehension of natural law.* Again the unity 
of knowledge must be realized, for a reason which is 
certainly much more influential than one derived from 
logic, because the human understanding demands unity.” 
This makes thought and its discoveries a biological 
phenomenon with a certain survival value; they de- 
velop as in Lamennais in humanity as a whole, much 
as instincts develop in the individual. Yet, let it be 
noted in passing, this accords but weakly with Comte’s 
fundamental intellectualism, in which he makes all 
human institutions depend on human beliefs and sees 
no reform possible in society until a reform has been 
effected in human thinking.” Thinking cannot both be 
a guide to “life”? and a by-product of living. Both of 
these ideas are in Comte, confusing his argument. They 
are never completely untangled. It is impossible to 
say which of them he considered the more important, 
for both unhappily are influential in his philosophy. 

Not only is science a development of the human un- 
derstanding, but a study of its history will practically 
take the place of psychology.” Comte saw little value 
in the introspective psychology of Cousin and his group. 
The intellect, he believed, could not grasp itself in its 
activity. Hence one must substitute for it the intellect 
of the race, which is expressed in the history of human 
beings. This again is in accordance with Lamennais’s 
special brand of Traditionalism. 


wo Cours, .EVoase! 

eG ANEN. 251 

* Td. I 26. 

® Cf. Lévy-Bruhl; Op. cit. 53. 


THE RISE OF POSITIVISM 263 


II 


The notion that society was unified is thus seen to 
have a triple root, one part in the work of secular so- 
cial reformers, one in the ecclesiastical tradition, one 
in the philosophical doctrine of common-sense. This 
doctrine was accompanied by another which Comte be- 
lieved of capital importance, the law of the three states. 
Briefly, the law of the three states describes the prog- 
ress of the human mind. Historically, human beings 
are supposed to have begun interpreting the world about 
them in anthropomorphic terms, reading a will into the 
operation of even the least human forces. From this 
early “ theological stage ” science progressed to a higher 
stage, in which forces, essences—attraction, the ether, 
and the like—were employed to do the work of the 
theological will. Such entities were considered by Comte 
to be more abstract and less crude than the entities in- 
voked in the earlier period; the use of them denotes 
a “metaphysical” turn of mind. The great fault of 
the metaphysical mind is its desire to explain rather 
than to describe. The progress towards unbiassed de- 
scription is the next phase of human development. This 
- period once attained, man becomes positivistic. It 
should not be forgotten that the law of the three states 
is not only descriptive itself; it is normative. Not only 
does science move from theology to positivism, but in 
doing so it moves from worse to better.” 

-” This law was discussed by C. in print in his article, “ Con- 


sidérations philos. sur les sciences et les savans,” Producieur, 
1825, I 289. The same exposition will be found in “Cours” I, 


264 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


Men so unlike Comte as Damiron, the eclectic, had 
the same fervent admiration for the pursuit of science.” 
But few of his contemporaries limited its method so 
narrowly, especially few of his contemporaries among 
men of science. “ Positivism,” said Geoffroy-Saint- 
Hilaire,” “ the word has been invented, but in what does 
the idea which it expresses consist?’’ Other scientists 
seem to have taken the same attitude. Yet Comte was 
not the originator of the famous law. Before him his 
master, Saint-Simon, had made the opposition between 
theology and metaphysics, on the one hand, and posi- 
tivistic science on the other. This opinion, he said, he 
had received from his friend, Burdin, a physician, 
author of a “Cours d’études médicales”’ (P. 1803), 
who, moreover, had the same goal as both Saint-Simon 
and Comte, viz., social reform. Cuvier, from whom 
Burdin admitted he had received his greatest inspira- 
tion, later formulated a similar law; and Turgot ear- 
lier in the eighteenth century had framed one so close 
to Comte’s in both letter and spirit—which was re- 
published in 1808—that there can be little doubt in 
the minds of fair-minded readers of where Comte’s 
came from. 


Ist lesson. He maintains that “several of the fundamental 
ideas’ of the book were expounded in his “ Systéme de politi- — 
que positive” privately printed (100 copies) in 1822 and re- 
printed in 1824. See “Cours,” avertissement de l’auteur, I xii. 
Cf. “Plan des travaux scietifiques,’ May 1822 and “Cours” 
IV 344: “La grande loi que j’ai découverte en 1822.” 

* Cf. his “ Hist. de la Philos. en Fr.,” 149: “La science est 
grosse de religion, etc.” 

*“ Notions synthétiques,” P. 1838, 64 n. 





THE RISE OF POSITIVISM 265 


In his “‘ Plan of the Second Discourse on Universal 
History,” “ Turgot writes as follows: 


“Before knowing the linkage of physical effects 
among themselves, there would be nothing more natural 
than to suppose that they were produced by beings intel- 
ligent, invisible, and like ourselves ; for what should they 
have resembled? Everything which happened without 
man’s having a share in it, had its god, to whom fear 
or hope soon rendered a cult. And this cult was again 
constructed according to the attitude which one would 
have for men of power, for the gods were only more 
powerful and more or less perfect men, according to 
whether they were the work of a century more or less 
enlightened about the true perfections of humanity. 

“When the philosophers recognized the absurdity of 
these stories, without having acquired nevertheless true 
enlightenment on natural history, they thought to ex- 
plain the causes of phenomena by abstract expressions, 
such as essences and faculties, expressions which, how- 
ever, explained nothing, and about which one reasoned 
as if they had been beings, new divinities substituted 
for the old. One followed these analogies and multi- 
plied the faculties to account reasonably for each effect. 

“Tt was only later, while observing the mechanical 
action which bodies have one upon the other, that there 
was drawn from this mechanics other hypotheses which 
mathematics could develop and experiment verify.” 


This plan was published, as we have said, in 1808 
although the discourse itself was delivered at the Sor- 
bonne in 1750. | 

At the same time that Turgot was formulating this 
law of the development of the sciences, the editors of 
the Encyclopedia were theorizing about the beginnings 
of science and its method. They pointed out (Ed. of 


73“ Oeuvres de Turgot,” ed. Eugéne Daire, P. 1844, II 656. 


266 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


1751, p. i) that the arts and sciences are mutually help- 
ful; that (p. iv) agriculture and medicine, since they 
are absolutely necessary to life, developed first, and 
that physics, “ the study of nature,” was the first science 
because it might be useful to satisfy man’s curiosity. 
The ‘“‘ Discours” then says, “ All the properties which 
we observe in [terrestrial] bodies have relations more 
or less perceptible to us: the knowledge or the discovery 
of these relations is almost always the only object which 
we are permitted to attain, and the sole which conse- 
quently we ought to set before ourselves. It is not 
then by vague and arbitrary hypotheses that we can 
hope to know Nature; it is by study and reflection upon 
phenomena, by the comparison which we make between 
them, by the art of reducing as far as possible a large 
number of phenomena to one alone which may be re- 
garded as their principle” (p. vi). 

The link between Turgot and Saint-Simon is, I think 
it is fair to say, not so much Burdin as Condorcet. That 
Condorcet was often inspired by Turgot is easily seen 
from their correspondence, Saint-Simon acknowledges 
Condorcet as one of the four men who most influenced 
him, as one of the four men whose works he will try to 
synthesize. Undoubtedly one of the best known of 
Condorcet’s contributions to science is his “ Esquisse 
d’un tableau historique des progrés de l’esprit humain ” 
(P. An IIT). It was of course known by Comte, who 
fully appreciated its method. 

Now Condorcet’s “ Esquisse ” practically begins with 
the statement, which Comte duplicates, that the prog- 
ress of the human mind as a whole from generation to 





THE RISE OF POSITIVISM 267 


generation, follows the same law of development as 
that which governs the progress of the individual’s 
faculties (p. 3). Comte expresses psychological re- 
capitulation thus: 


_ “The point of departure being necessarily the same 
in the education of the individual as in that of the 
species, the divers principal phases of the former ought 
to represent the fundamental epochs of the latter. But, 
each of us, looking back upon his own history, remem- 
bers, does he not, that he was successively, as far as 
his most important ideas are concerned, theologian in 
his infancy, metaphystcian in his youth, and physicist 
in his manhood.” ™ 

Following this opinion of Condorcet’s he almost im- 
mediately points out the formation of the ecclesiastic 
class in primitive society, in whose care was entrusted 
the beginning of science (p. 27). Their feeble knowl- 
edge of astronomy and medicine, their total scientific 
possessions—Condorcet here agrees with the Encyclo- 
pedia—was corrupted by superstition. Even in the third 
period, the agricultural, science was ecclesiastic and 
hence superstitious, not so much because of any inherent 


*“ Cours” 14. Cf. Id. lV 331. The notion that the individual 
is somehow society in microcosm, is after all as old as Plato, 
who uses the resemblance largely as the matrix of his Republic, 
though to be sure in Plato the element of progress is not present. 
This kind of recapitulation should be contrasted with what 
might be called the “exfoliation” of the individual in Hegel’s 
“ Phanomenologie,”’ in which the individual, being developed, 
becomes the Absolute by the simple relegation of time to the 
realm of Appearance out of the realm of Reality. I do not 
know whether Comte actually derived his idea from someone 
else or not. At all events biological recapitulation was a famil- 
iar thesis by his time, having been expounded by Kielmaier in 
1796 and popularized by Cuvier in his lectures on the history 
of natural science. 


268 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


reason, as because of the pride of the priestly caste and 
their desire to monopolize learning (p. 62) and to domi- 
nate over their weaker subjects (p. 65). Greece, how- 
ever, shook off the yoke of the priests (p. 76) and per- 
mitted human genius to assert itself. Here begins what 
was for Turgot and Comte the metaphysical period. 


“ However their sages, their scientists, who soon took 
the more modest name of philosophers or friends of 
knowledge, of wisdom, lost themselves in the immensity 
of the too vast plan which they had embraced. They 
wished to penetrate the nature of man and that of the 
gods, the origin of the world and that of humankind. 
They tried to reduce the whole of nature to a single 
principle, and the phenomena of the universe to a unique 
law. ... Thus instead of discovering truths, they 
forged systems; they neglected the observation of facts, 
to abandon themselves to their imagination; and not 
being able to base their opinions on proofs, they tried 
to defend them by subtleties ” (p. 77). 


If now we turn to Turgot, not to the “ Plan ” referred 
to above but to the discourse itself, we find: 


‘“ Spectator of the universe, man’s senses, while show- 
ing him the effects, leave him ignorant of the causes; 
and to search by the examination of the effects their 
unknown causes is to guess an enigma, to imagine one 
or several words, to try them successively until one 
meets one of them which will fulfill all the conditions.” ® 

“Men, forgetful of the earliest traditions, struck by 
sensible phenomena, supposed that all effects indepen- 
dent of their action were produced by beings similar 


to themselves, but invisible and more powerful, which | 


they substituted for the Divinity.” * 


And finally, ‘‘ The [Greek] metaphysician, faltering 


upon the most important truths, often superstitious or 


**““Teuxiéme Discours sur les progrés successifs de l’esprit — 


humain,” Oeuvres II 600. 


iy 
€ 


* Td. 601. 
5 





lan a 


THE RISE OF POSITIVISM 269 


impious, was scarcely anything more than a con- 
glomeration of poetic fables, or a tissue of unintel- 
ligible words, and their physics itself was but a frivol- 
ous metaphysics.” * 

With the coming of Aristotle there was, continued 
Condorcet (p. 102), a division in the sciences. Accord- 
ing to Turgot, “ Aristotle, the most inclusive, the most 
profound, the most truly philosophical of all antiquity, 
first carried the torch of exact analysis into philosophy 
and the arts; and unveiling the principles of certitude 
and the force of sentiment, he subjected to constant 
rules the procedure of the reason and even the dash of 
genius.” Condorcet credits the age of Aristotle with 
the introduction of observation (p. 107), which unhap- 
pily lacked experimentation to give it greater solidity. 
It lacked also the printing press, which would have 
kept its records from destruction at the hands of the 
Christians. After depicting the gloominess of the Dark 
Ages, Condorcet pays a tribute to the scholastic philoso- 
phers, whose function was to sharpen the distinction 
between words, but unfortunately not to advance natural 
science (p. 178). “ Everywhere the authority of men 
was substituted for that of reason. Books were studied 
much more than nature, and the opinions of the ancients 
rather than the phenomena of the universe” (p. 183). 
Thus arose the debates of the Platonists against the 
Aristotelians (p. 203) and the subtleties of moral 
science (p. 212), both of which were weak in principle 
and the second vicious in its aim. Europe became hypo- 
critical and tyrannical and suddenly science began its 


™ Td. 604. 


270 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


real progress against what went before. Comte’s posi- 
tivistic period began. 

Mathematics headed the list (p. 215), then physics 
and astronomy (p. 216), then natural history and chem- 
istry (p. 218). In Turgot (p. 608) the list is mathe- 
matics, astronomy, and chemistry. The three men, ac- 
cording to Condorcet, who stand foremost in the re- 
form of science are Bacon, Galileo, and Descartes (p. 
229). In Turgot they are Galileo, Kepler, Newton, 
Bacon, and Descartes (p. 610). And in Comte we 
read, after he has pointed out the difficulty of assigning 
a definite date for the beginning of positivistic science ; 
“However, since it is fitting to fix an epoch to pre- 
vent the wandering of our ideas, I shall indicate that 
of the great movement impressed upon the human mind 
two centuries ago, by the combined action of the pre- 
cepts of Bacon, the conceptions of Descartes, and the 
discoveries of Galileo, as the moment when the spirit 
of positive philosophy began to speak in this world, in — 
evident opposition with the theological and metaphysi- — 
cal spirit.) 

Saint-Simon’s version of the law of the three states — 
is not so clearly defined as Turgot’s and it is doubtful — 
that Comte could have derived his formulation from his — 
master. It appeared first in 1803 when he published — 
“Lettres d’un Habitant de Genéve.”” The little book- _ 


@.* Cours” Ets cf 1028. ‘ 

The date varies according to different bibliographers, for — 
the little booklet was published without a date. Henri Fournel, — 
in his “ Bibliographie Saint-Simonienne,” P. 1833, gives it as — 
1802, but notes that 1803 is given by Beuchot’s journal. Quérard H 
gives 1803. \ 


‘a 
i 
im 





THE RISE OF POSITIVISM 271 


let pretended to be promulgating a new religion divinely 
inspired in a dream, This religion, in which Newton 
seemed to occupy the place of Christ and Robespierre 
that of Satan, is the pursuit of man’s happiness through 
the development of science, the goal of the Encyclo- 
pedta. Saint-Simon points out the familiar correlation 
between science and art—astronomy and navigation, 
for instance—which everyone seems to think has a pecu- 
liar significance. He then classifies the sciences, as 
Comte will, as follows: astronomy, physics, chemistry, 
physiology.” All of these sciences, moreover, are con- 
trolled by mathematics, as in Comte, and the list, also 
as in Comte, is arranged in order of growing complexity. 
In fact, Saint-Simon believed here that the reason why 
astronomy was the first science to be developed was 
exactly the simplicity of its phenomena.” Progress in 
these sciences consists in the substitution of observation 
for imagination; for in the beginning of astronomy 
there was a tendency to mingle facts observed with 
facts imagined. Just what type of imaginary facts were 
intermingled in early science, Saint-Simon does not 
say, but he cites as his main example of scientific prog- 
ress the passage of astronomy from astrology and of 
chemistry from alchemy.” Physiology, he maintained,” 

% “T ettres d’un Habitant de Genéve,” 49. Cf. Comte; “ Som- 


maire appréciation de Il’ ensemble du passé moderne,” repr. in 
“Opuscules de Philos. Soc.,” P. 1883, p. 40; also in “ Pol. 


Pos.” App. IV. 
«1 “ Habitant” 53. Cf. Comte; “Cours” I 10; “ Considéra- 
tions . . . sur les sciences,” 2d art. Producteur 1825, I 350; 


“Plan des travaux,” “ Opuscules” 103. 
= Habitant” 55. 
of hip 


272 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


is in the same stage as astrology and alchemy—more 
or less Comte’s opinion too—and will not in its turn 
became a developed science until the physiologists have 
chased from their numbers “the philosophers, moral- 
ists, and metaphysicians.” In physiology he sees the 
hope of society, for it is much more informative about 
man than all the so-called moral sciences, “‘ The revolu- 
tionists,” he says,” “have applied to the Negroes the 
principles of equality ; if they had consulted the physi- 
ologists, they would have learned that the Negro, ac- 
cording to what his organism tells us, is not susceptible 
to the equal condition of education, to be educated to 
the same level of intelligence as the European.” 

It will be gathered from this that Saint-Simon began 
his career with the following principles, (a) the found- 
ing of religion on science, (b) the improvement of 
society through scientific progress, (c) the classifica- 
tion of the sciences in order of “ complexity,” (d) the 
foundation of the sciences in order of complexity, (e) 
the progress of the sciences through the purgation of 
“imaginary ” facts. 

Saint-Simon has little to add to his theory ten years 


later, when he writes his ‘“‘ Mémoires sur la science de 


homme ” (1813),° which is sometimes referred to as 
the locus classicus of his formulation of the law of the 
three stages. He makes his adhesion to sociology, or 
“the science of man,” firmer by attaching it more defi- 
nitely to the other natural sciences. He names the four 


1d, OO Tu i, 


* In the large edition of Enfantin’s and Saint-Simon’s works, — 


this is dated 1813. Fournel gives 1811. 


THE RISE OF POSITIVISM 273 


men whom he thinks to be not only the precursors of 
this science, Vicq-d’Azyr, Cabanis, Bichat, and Con- 
dorcet,* but also to have said between them all that 
needs to be said on the subject. Here too he definitely 
attributes to Burdin the inspiration of his theory. Ac- 
cording to a conversation held fifteen years earlier— 
1798 or 1800 according to the exact date of the ‘‘ Mé- 
moires ’—Burdin believed that all the sciences began 
by being conjectural, “the great order of things called 
them all to become positive. Astronomy began by being 
astrology; chemistry was only alchemy at its origin; 
physiology, which for long has been swimming in char- 
latanism, is based to-day on observed and discussed 
facts; psychology is beginning to found itself on physi- 
ology and to rid itself of the religious prejudices upon 
which it was originally founded.” “ Again he repeats 
that science began with conjecture because in primitive 
times there were not enough facts to serve as a basis. 
A new school of social science was to be founded, 
of which Saint-Simon was to be the philosopher and 
Burdin the physiologist.” The latter seems actually to 
have set to work, for he published contemporaneously 
with Saint-Simon’s “ Lettres d’un Habitant de Geneve ” 
his five volume work on medicine. But one looks in vain 
in this treatise for a formulation of the law of the three 
stages. It is one thing to say that science begins by 
being conjectural and progresses into becoming posi- 
tivistic; it is quite another to say that science be- 
%*% “ Mémoires,” ed. of 1858, pp. 242, 252. 


® I ds255. 
* Id. 270. 


19 


274 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


gins by being “ theological ”—anthropomorphic—passes 
through the stage of being metaphysical, and ends by 
being positive. 

The exact relation between Cuvier and Comte, as re- 
gards this matter, is not clear. Burdin, as we have sug- 
gested above, thanked Cuvier in his preface to the 
“Cours d’Etudes Médicales”’ (P. 1803, I xiv) as one 
from whose lessons he has greatly profited. It is prob- 
able that the lessons were lessons in anatomy rather 
than in scientific method, yet Cuvier had a theory about 
the progress of science which may very well have been 
expressed by him in his lectures before it was published. 
In a lecture of which there is a copy in the Globe of 
December 30, 1829 (VII 825),” he pointed out that 
the history of science can be divided into three periods. 
The first he calls “religious.” “ Science here is secret 
and the privilege of a few men who transmit it heredi- 
tarily.” The second he calls “philosophic.” Here 
science is isolated from religion and cultivated by sages 
who no longer communicate it as priests in symbolic 
form but spread it about freely. The third he calls the 
period of “ the division of labor,” in which science split 
into its various branches. He pointed out that its ini- 
tiators, Bacon and Descartes, no longer expected facts 
to fit into the framework of Aristotelianism ; they made 
experiments and calculation.” It is the course of wis- 
dom not to insist upon the influence of Cuvier but rather 
to consider his ideas on the subject a curious coin- 
cidence. For in his “ Reflections on the present de- 


*° Repr. in “ Hist. des sciences naturelles,” P. 1841, I 10. 
*“ Tist. des sciences Naturelles,” II 272. 


THE RISE OF POSITIVISM 275 


velopment of the sciences and their relation to society,” 
read before the Academies in 1816, where he might 
have been expected to “ anticipate ” the positivists most 
clearly, he adopted more or less the same account of 
the beginning of science as that which was given in 
the editors’ opening discourse of the Encyclopedia. 
“ The early savages plucked in the forest certain nour- 
ishing fruits, certain salubrious roots, and thus satisfied 
their most pressing needs; the early shepherds perceived 
that the stars followed a regulated course, and used it 
to guide their journeys across the desert’s plains; such 
was the origin of the mathematical sciences, and such 
of the physical sciences.” “ He added nothing to this 
to account for scientific progress. He may have derived 
the inspiration for his later theory from his inductive 
study of the history of science. It is hardly likely that 
he read either Saint-Simon or Comte. 

From a consideration of these texts, it seems fair 
to say that the idea of the three stages explicitly phrased 
by Turgot was passed on to Condorcet, who expanded 
it into his history of human progress. From Condorcet 
it went to Burdin and Saint-Simon and perhaps to Cu- 
vier. Comte undoubtedly derived the idea and the main 
details of its amplification from Saint-Simon and the 
phraseology from Turgot. But if this affiliation be 
doubted, at least enough has been said to demonstrate 
that the idea was by no means new in Comte, as any- 
one with sufficient malice might have guessed who no- 
ticed his insistence upon his originality. 


“ Cuvier; “Receuil des éloges historiques,” P. 1819, I 2. 


276 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


Comte’s unconsciousness of his predecessors ends by 
becoming amusing. In his articles in the Producteur 
to which he refers readers of his ‘‘ Cours de Philosophie 
Positive,’ “ and which appeared in 1825, no mention 
is made of either Saint-Simon or Turgot. That he 
should have forgotten Saint-Simon was human enough, 
considering the relations between them, but there was 
little excuse for not mentioning Turgot. It is only jus- 
tice to say, however, that it is one thing to suggest a 
law in a literary manner and quite another to verify it 
in a scientific manner and to apply it. Comte loses none 
of his glory for having had predecessors. His “ Cours 
de Philosophie Positive ” remains as impressive as ever. 
In fact one can but the more admire the man who saw 
the implications of a law which its authors but dimly 
suspected.” 


III 


The termination of our intellectual history in posi- 
tivism seemed to be well substantiated by the work 
of scientists in Comte’s time. The discoveries in chem- 
istry, physics, and biology were occupying the public 
imagination more than the discoveries in philosophy. 
Cousin, who by the ’30’s was the official philosopher, 
was not so anxious to discover new metaphysical ideas 


Pe Couns. | Lis, 

“Tam somewhat inclined towards the position of M. Dumas, 
that there is little in Comte that was not previously in Saint- 
Simon. If one has not the patience or the facilities to read the 
originals, one should study his excellent ‘‘ Saint-Simon, pére du 
positivisme,” R. Philos., 1904, LVII 136, 263. 


watts ade, Manali 


THE RISE OF POSITIVISM 277 


as to reconcile old ones. The Catholics were naturally 
limited to exposition. The Idéologues were to all 
intents and purposes dead. 

This seemed to the French to be true of Germany too. 
For though Schelling was still alive, he was producing 
next to nothing. Hegel alone held the field, but his 
philosophy, if it reached France at all, was by way of 
eclecticism and it was not until much later that the 
real Hegel became widely known beyond the left bank 
of the Rhine, The Germanophile Nouvelle Revue Ger- 
manique in 1830 reported, “ To-day the reign of Schel- 
ling is over; but the influence he exerted during a suc- 
cession of years has left profound traces.” “ And in 
its report on the Leipzig Fair of the same year, it says, ” 
“The enthusiasm for speculative philosophy is no longer 
what it was in the time of Kant, Fichte, and Schelling ; 
cured of the mania for theories, people are turning with 
a certain resignation towards experience and history. 
The school of Hegel alone is an exception; but it in- 
terests the public only slightly and its influence is purely 
local and personal.’ What this meant, of course, was 
that people were buying books in natural science or 
literature. 

But literature was looked upon as a product of 
philosophical positions, rather than as their seed. 
Science alone was left to produce philosophies and it 
was this coupling of philosophy with science which gave 
Comte his peculiar strength later on. His notion com- 


“* Nouv. R. Germanique, 1830, IV 371. 
*“1d., 1830, V1.274. 


278 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


prised two distinct elements, (a) the catholicity of 
the scientific method and (b) the futility of all meta- 
physics. One might believe in one or both of these 
principles; they were not mutually dependent. 

As a matter of fact, all of Comte’s contemporaries, 
except the Traditionalists, believed in the first. Cousin, 
for instance, whom Comte was to belabor for his lack 
of scientific precision, advocated introspection in psy- 
chology because it alone was scientific and was based 
on no hypotheses. For him the cogito ergo sum of Des- 
cartes was a perfect example of scientific empiricism. 
Jouffroy, too, spent years collecting psychological facts 
on which to found his philosophy. Stapfer, who was 
influential in turning Maine de Biran’s attention towards 
Kant and who organized an educational system on 
Kantian principles, praised Jouffroy for pointing out 
that Reid had made “mental science” (science de 
lesprit) like the other sciences, and that by making 
the similarity between physical and philosophical re- 
searches complete, he had given to philosophy the only 
method—that of science—which had ever resulted in 
anything worth while.* 

The Catholic objection to the catholicity of scientific 
method was that in spiritual matters something more 
was needed than experimentation guided by the human 
reason. One of their articles, in which this objection 
among others is elucidated, was called “ Of the Abuse 

“ Stapfer; “ Mélanges philos., littér., hist., et relig.,” P. 1844, 
p. 194. Cf. Jouffroy; “ De l’eclectisme moderne,” Globe, 9 Apr. 


1825, V 458, which maintains that among other blessings eclec- 
ticism gave the modern world observation in science. 


THE RISE OF POSITIVISM 279 


of the Experimental Method applied to Ethics and 
Philosophy.” * In it the author objects to the use of 
the “scalpel of analysis” on the heart of man, “ All 
is simple, all is limited in the visible world; all is com- 
plex, all is infinite in the mental world: to transport the 
experimental method there is a folly more dangerous 
and no less laughable than if one wished to interest 
the moral conscience in the application of docimasy or 
in the solution of the square of the hypothenuse.” 
There was an arriére-pensée in the author’s mind, for 
he was really attacking the contemporary psychologists 
who seemed to separate conscience from the totality 
of consciousness and hence to violate the unity of the 
human soul. But this aside, he furnished an excellent 
example of the kind of distrust which the Catholics 
had for the experimental method elsewhere than in the 
traditional sciences. 

The futility of metaphysics was not so widely 
preached. It is, needless to say, here that the Catho- 
lics agreed that certain metaphysics, namely those un- 
supported by revelation, were futile. The eclectic 
group on the contrary believed in it strongly, advocat- 
ing merely that it be founded on “the psychological 
method.” The Idéologues and their descendants pre- 
tended to be as anti-metaphysical as Comte, and Saint- 
Simon acknowledged the importance of their work by 
including Cabanis in his quartette of really great men. 
Maine de Biran, however, did not share their distrust 

“By Comte Edouard de la Grange, Le Conservateur, 1820, 


VI1I5. 
ep. cel: X17. 


280 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


for metaphysics. It was this, even more than the details 
of his theory, which finally alienated him from his origi- 
nal masters and set him apart historically. Curiously 
enough it was a scientist, the elder Ampere, whose in- 
fluence perhaps counted most in producing this effect. 

There was in spite of the similarity a difference be- 
tween the Idéologues’ attitude towards metaphysics and 
the Positivists’. The Idéologues had different reasons 
behind their opposition. They were inclined to look 
upon metaphysics as something clerical, something 
which smacked of incense and which was therefore 
reactionary and anti-republican. It was associated in 
their minds with mysticism and neo-platonism and other 
beliefs which they felt were obscurantist. Thus, as 
we have tried to show, they believed in substituting 
for it the analysis of sensations. The Positivists, on 
the other hand, had a much greater respect for the 
Church than they had for revolutionary Philosophers. 
No one is in ignorance of both Saint-Simon’s and 
Comte’s regard for the noble organisation which dis- 
tinguishes its appearance on earth and for the discipline 
which that organisation entails. When Condorcet ex- 
presses the opinion that the Middle Ages were a time 
of ignorance, Saint-Simon reproves him and rejoices 
that his friend Oelsner was able to show him Condor- 
cet’s error.” The Producteur, at this time as much 
positivistic as Saint-Simonian, always treated Bonald 
and his group with the highest respect. Hence the 
Positivistic campaign against metaphysics must not be 
thought of as inspired by anti-clerical motives. 


*“ Mém. sur la science de I’ homme,” 287. 


Se 


THE RISE OF POSITIVISM 281 


The Positivist would probably have agreed with the 
Idéologue in defining metaphysics, but the denotation 
of their definitions would have differed. The Posi- 
tivist, when he objected to the study, often thought 
of the school of Cousin instead of thinking of St. 
Thomas. Strictly speaking, he had no right to object 
to metaphysics at all, and sometimes he was careful to 
indicate when he was exceeding his rights. Laurent’s 
review of Cousin’s “ Fragments Philosophiques ”” for 
instance, accepts Tracy’s definition of “sensation” 
rather than Cousin’s, but the Producteur warns the 
reader in a foot-note that this is a purely personal 
opinion and not the opinion of the magazine. The 
business of the Producteur was “to examine philo- 
sophic doctrines only in relation to their application 
and their social utility.’” It was the abandonment of 
metaphysics rather than its annihilation which was 
their program, for to them it was a human interest 
now outlived, of no more contemporary interest than 
primitive war-dances. 

The Positivists were not however free from a meta- 
physics of their own. 

Their very insistence on the futility of metaphysics 
suggests one. By what name it is to be called is of small 
moment; it had affiliations with both phenomenalism 
and materialism,” but lest these names be too vague 
we shall point out a few of its main characters. 

° Producteur, 1826, II 325. 


wd. LV 24. 
® Cf. Saisset; “La philos. positive,’ RDM XV 187. 


282 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


Comte’s early associates all hated the search for 
causes. and “explanations.” Laurent, in the article 
mentioned above, writes like Comte himself against 
psychology, because whereas physiology “stops where 
phenomena are wanting, psychology abandons observa- 
tion to mount by the inductive path to causalty, to 
substance, that is to say, to ontology.” Comte, who 
must be taken as an authoritative source for the dogma 
of positivism, does not differ much in his attitude 
towards psychology. He admits that such a phenom- 
enon as perception is sui generis and hence impos- 
sible of further analysis.“ But along with “ irritabil- 
ity’ perception is a mark of animality and the study 
of their laws determines biology, not psychology. This 
does not mean that Comte believes in a kind of Leib- 
nizian petite perception which is somehow incorporate 
in animal tissue. On the contrary, he rejects this be- 
lief with violence, calling such an “ organic sensibility ” 
a “‘ sensibility without consciousness, of which the defi- 
nition alone is directly contradictory.” ® 

The first fact which Comte admits as established in 
the matter of psychology is the arrangement of the 
senses in order of specialty, beginning with touch, 
which is the “ universal sense,” as Democritus had sug- 
gested two thousand years before, and continuing 
through taste, smell, sight, and finally hearing.” It will 
be noticed, he adds, “that this gradation coincides 


°° Producteur, III 330 n. 
*“ Cours” III 370. 
HMO ERM yo 8 

*° Id. III 390. 


THE RISE OF POSITIVISM 283 


exactly with the importance of the sensation, if not for 
intelligence, at least for sociability.” It will also be 
noticed, let us add on our own account that this classifi- 
cation coincides with the classification of the sciences 
from the most general to the most particular. 

The second fact which Comte admits is the dis- 
tinction between “the passive and the active state of 
each special sense,” which distinction he attributes 
to Gall, and which we have seen utilized especially by 
Laromiguiere. A sensation is passive when it occurs 
in spite of or without reference to our will, he says, but 
makes no effort to analyse his extraordinary opinion 
any further and adds that the study of sensation as it 
would be carried on to-day by a “ physiological psy- 
chologist ” is the only positive study. 

This seems a rather summary dismissal of the elemen- 
tary facts of consciousness, but Comte is equally cava- 
lier when he treats of the more complex. Thus the 
positive study of “the affective and intellectual func- 
tions ”’ consists in the ‘“‘ experimental and rational study 
of the divers phenomena of internal sensibility peculiar 
to the cerebral ganglia devoid of all external appara- 
tus.” * What this study amounts to is what he calls 

“ phrenological physiology,” ® which is simply a branch 
of physiology. His insistence upon this item is of 
vastly greater moment to us than its meaning. It would 
be next to impossible to infer just what the experimental 
and rational study of phrenological physiology would 

old {es 


% “ Cours” III 404. 
Td. III 405 n. 


284 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


consist in did not Comte mention with admiration such 
names as Gall and Broussais and presuppose the in- 
dissolubility of sensitivity and organic matter.” The 
two names indicate in a measure the direction which the 
Comtean psychology would pursue and the presup- 
position indicates the limits of the pursuit. With all 
due respect to contemporary psychologists, who would 
perhaps shudder at being bracketed with Gall and 
Broussais, one must admit, I think, that what Comte 
was aiming at was something very like behaviorism.” 

This suspicion becomes strengthened when one reads 
his attack on the school of Cousin or rather Jouffroy 
who, as we know, followed the Biranian method of 
introspection. He declares in the first place,” following 
Broussais, that such a method limits psychology to 
the study of “healthy adults,” thus eliminating child 
psychology, psychopathology, animal psychology. Sec- 
ond, and here we have certainly a more striking an- 
ticipation of contemporary arguments against intro- 
spection, it can never study its data as they occur. It 
can study them only after their occurrence. Moreover 
it tends to obscure the affective side of our mentality, 
which Comte believes—in this part of his “ Cours ”— 

© Cf. id. III 419. “ Two philos. principles, which need no dis- 
cussion, serve as the unshaken basis of the whole of Gall’s 
doctrine, to wit; the innateness of the various fundamental dis- 
positions, either affective or intellectual; the plurality of the 
faculties essentially distinct and radically independent of one 
another, although effective acts ordinarily demand their more 
or less complex cooperation.” 

= Cf. “Cours” III 409, where he praises Destutt de Tracy 


for having seen that “ideology is a part of zoology.” 
“Id. III 408. 


THE RISE OF POSITIVISM 285 


to constitute “the principal motive power of human 
life.” The affections and passions are far from being 
the result of intelligence; they are its stimulus.” That 
is why, he concludes, the study of psychology must be 
linked on the one hand to the fundamental biological re- 
searches, and on the other to the extended study of 
natural history, animals, men, and humanity at large.” 

Continually combating the introspective study of 
psychology, Comte has already laid down a few dogmas 
of interest. The affective ground of intelligence, which 
harmonizes but little with the intellectualism of his 
total philosophy, is but one. He proceeds next to de- 
molish, as Hume had before him,” the unity of the 
Ego, so dear to Biran and the Eclectics. He appeals 
to les savants positifs who have recognized the multi- 
plicity of “human nature.” The “abstract and in- 
direct ” notion of the Ego comes from the “ continuous 
feeling” of the whole organism. But that feeling is 
shared by the animals. “ A cat, or any other vertebrate, 
without knowing how to say J, is not in the habit of 
mistaking another for himself.” In the higher animals, 
the feeling of personality is perhaps even more pro- 
nounced than in man, for they lead a non-social life,” 
a reason which approaches Comte’s theory of the egois- 
tic consciousness to that of Royce and Baldwin. 

Pratl air. 

* Id. III 4009. 

* He appreciates the work of Hume, who with Adam Smith 
and Ferguson, he says (“Cours” III 418) has most closely 
approached positivism. He forgot that H.’s demolition of the 


Ego was based on introspection. 
Wid. iil 413. 


286 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


These indications of a psychology became more pro- 
nounced when Comte wrote his “ Politique Positive.” ” 
He then developed the social aspects of psychology 
rather than the physiological, Just as he had seen in 
his law of the three states the history of both the in- 
dividual mind and the group mind, so now when he 
analyses the human consciousness, he thinks of it in 
terms of society. He speaks here of faculties and dis- 
positions with the freedom of his hated eclectics and 
other “ metaphysicians.” But he thinks to save himself 
from their errors by extending the scope of his in- 
quiry into the products of the human mind, the arts 
and sciences, instead of limiting it to the scrutiny of 
sensations, images, and the like as they occur. He is 
a victim of the illusion that the arts and sciences are 
fixed, so to speak, and have left legible traces like the 
remains of prehistoric animals in the rocks. That sta- 
bility gives him a feeling of confidence when he in- 
terprets them and eradicates any suspicion that he might 
have of betraying his positivistic faith. 

The opinion that such a theory is metaphysical does 
not seem without foundation. Is there no metaphysics 
in the innateness of psychological phenomena, in the 
non-existence of the Ego, in the multiplicity of men- 
tality, in the union of individual and social history? 
If Comte is non-metaphysical, it is simply that he has 
neglected to develop fully his metaphysics. He needed 
merely to scrutinize a few of his statements and to ask 
himself on what they were based in order to begin a 


* Cf. Lévy-Bruhl; Op. cit. 233. 


THE RISE OF POSITIVISM 287 


seventh volume to his “ Cours,’ which might be called, 
following Spencer, “ First Principles.” Along with the 
metaphysics involved in his psychology, is the meta- 
physics of positivism itself. What is this universe in 
which “ causes ” 
follow one another according to “law”? It was no 
serious matter for Hume to deny the validity of our 
knowledge of causation, because he was not an atheist 
and saw, as he said himself, that the invalidity of causal 
laws made miracles possible. But Comte faced greater 
difficulties. He was in no position to substantiate mira- 
cles. Nor could he logically plead with Spencer that 
ultimate causes might exist but were unknowable. For 
to Comte the idea of a cause is an idea which men must 
reject, as something that belongs to their adolescence. 
Yet he never met this difficulty and, as far as meta- 
physics went, he remained simply a member of the 
opposition. 


are illusory and yet in which events 


IV 


The focus of both Saint-Simon’s and Comte’s phi- 
losophy was social reorganization. Even the arts and 
sciences in the eyes of these men existed not for the 
sake of beauty or truth, but for the sake of what they 
called Society. In Saint-Simon’s early book, “ Lettres 
d’un Habitant de Geneve,” he had said (p. 46), 

“My friends, in England, there are many scientists 
(savants) : the educated English have more respect for 
scientists than for kings ; everyone knows how to read, 
write and do sums in England. Well, my friends, in 


that country, the workmen in the cities and even those 
in the country, eat meat every day. 


288 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


“In Russia, when a scientist displeases the Emperor, 
his nose and ears are cut off and he is sent to Siberia. 
In Russia the peasants are as ignorant as their horses; 
well, my friends, the Russian peasants are ill nourished, 
ill clothed, and are beaten to no small extent.” 


It is the scientist, he goes on to say, who can amelio- 
rate the lot of man and it is man’s privilege to exact 
that he use this power (p. 48). 

This attitude was adopted by the Positivists in gen- 
eral, In the Producteur, to which Comte contributed 
his early articles, Buchez has an article, “Some Re- 
flections on Literature and the Fine Arts.” “ After de- 
picting what he believes to be the leading ideas of the 
classic and romantic schools, he says, addressing artists 
in general : 


“It is idleness which must be attacked and combatted 
in all its forms; people are proud of it; they must be 
made ashamed of it. Amuse them no longer with the 
laughable side and the wretchedness of the poor; no 
longer feed their pride with the picture of their physical 
or mental superiority, but show them that all which is 
blame-worthy is their fault, that they are its first cause. 
Let their rest be troubled by your clamor and become 
unbearable; ridicule these elegant idlers who gallantly 
lose their time in horse racing and contracting debts. 
Make us laugh at the expense of charming women and 
charming soldiers, and at these captains of industry 
ashamed of their profession, clumsy imitators of the 
vices of high society. Oh, of what importance are salons 
to you? Your voice will be heard in the present and 
the future; you have in your hands a power which no- 
thing can weaken and which can only increase. To at- 
tack that which is falling, to hasten the fall of that 
which ought to perish, and to raise all that grows by 
science and labor, there is the task of the fine arts; 


* Producteur, 1826, IV 180. 


THE RISE OF POSITIVISM 289 


until this day they have scarcely ever ceased to do the 
opposite ; they must leave this road and take possession 
of the new and rich mine which is open to them.” ® 


The following are the closing lines of a poem to 
Shakespeare from Louis Blanc’s Revie du Progrés:” 


“A ton ombre applaudit mon coeur de proletaire, 
Mais, O mon grand William, ne fallait renier 
Ce peuple ot tu naquis paysan, braconnier . 4 
C’est pourquoi je te dis: poéte impopulaire!.... 
Il te fallait heurter aux portes des palais, 

Non avec l’éperon de gentilhomme anglais, 

Mais prenant dans tes mains le fouet et la laniére; 
En poéte insoumis, enfant de sa chaumiere, 
Flageller a grands traits tous ces rois imposteurs, 
Dont ton crayon hardi nous dessine les moeurs; 
Dévoiler le leurs cours les plates fourberies, 
Des courtisans gagés les obliques roueries, 

Et pour lecon alors mettant le chatiment, 

De tes drames, Shakspeare, oblige dénotment, 
Du peuple soulevé, devant tout un parterre 
Faire clamer la voix et rugir le tonnerre!.... 
Voila, dans tes écrits, dont la gloire renait, 

Ce que tu devais faire et que tu n’as pas fait.” 


This hideous bit of advice would not have seemed 
any more outlandish to Comte than it did to Louis 
Blanc. Blanc, in fact, in the prospectus to his review, 
says among other things, “‘ If the man of learning seeks 
new processes, let it be to diminish the poor man’s labor 
and not his wages. If the poet is inspired, let it be 
to shame the selfishness of cowardly stupidity or to 
glorify the grandeur and the august joys of self- 
devotion.” ” Liberals under the bourgeois monarchy 
were likely to share that feeling. 

We shall treat of Comte’s esthetics below. For the 
moment we are content to indicate what his social pro- 


® Loc. cit. 209. 

PasatovV 1 tet. 

™ R, du Progrés, 1839, I 14. 
20 


290 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


gram is, that program which all life must be determined 
to realize. The development of sociology implies for 
him a politics, just as the development of astronomy im- 
plies an improvement in navigation. 

Perhaps one of the primitive ideas in his system is 
the inherent sociability of human beings, an idea 
founded, he believes, in the researches of Gall.” This, 
he insists, is one of his main differences with the phi- 
losophers of the eighteenth century, who saw in the 
creation of society the satisfaction of self-interest. The 
first trait which characterizes the social animal, man, 
is the influence of the passions upon the intellect,” 
although the intellect is always to be looked upon as the 
more reliable judge in human affairs. The second trait 
is the indubitable ascendancy of the self-regarding in- 
stincts over the nobler inclinations of man.” It is this 
trait which assures, curiously enough, the successful 
operation of charity, and similar social attitudes. For 
we cannot be expected to consider, says Comte, other 
people as if they were we. Thus the increase of sym- 
pathy involves an increase of intelligence” and social 
amelioration will always tend towards the education 
of man’s intellectual activities." In this way Comte 
hopes that the fundamental antagonism between man’s 
dislike for thought and its indispensableness for his 
happiness can be eliminated. 


7?“ Cours” IV 284. 
™ fd: VV 288. 
“Id. IV 290. 
Pi a lL Vio. 
Mids LV 263: 


THE RISE OF POSITIVISM 291 


Comte’s striking difference from his contemporaries 
comes to light in this theory of individual sociability. 
The Idéologue, at the other extreme, with his sen- 
sationalism more or less modified, and the vestiges of 
the ethics of self-interest, was prone to look upon so- 
ciety as a collection of individuals, complete in every 
way, even when in isolation, and politically similar. For 
him the amelioration of the individual’s lot could be 
attained directly by the respecting of his “ rights” and 
the exacting of his duties. In Comte’s theory, however, 
the individual is not the social atom, “ The scientific 
spirit,’ he says,” “does not permit us to look upon so- 
ciety as being really composed of individuals.” The 
social atom is instead the family which Comte, like 
Bonald and Hegel, considers the intermediary link be- 
tween the individual and society. It is in family life 
that man begins to emerge from pure egoism ™ towards 
altruism, by obedience not to any external law enforced 
by the state, but by obedience to one of the most power- 
ful of his own instincts. “It is incontestable,” he says,” 
“that the ensemble of domestic relations in no way cor- 
responds to an association strictly speaking, but that 
it composes a veritable union, attributing to this term 
all its intrinsic energy.” It is by respecting the rights 
of the family that we may escape from the anarchy 
which, Comte thought, characterized his epoch. 

As a corollary of this theorem, Comte deduced the 
inequality of the sexes,” just as he had asserted earlier 


“Id. IV 294. 
* id o1V 205. 
Jd. LV 310. 
*° Id. IV 300. 


292 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


the inequality of individuals.” Woman, he believes, “is 
fundamentally inferior” and ‘secondarily superior ” 
to man from the social point of view.” She has pro- 
duced nothing of great importance in the arts and 
sciences and has no aptitude for government.” But, he 
insists, woman has a deeper sympathy and sociability 
than man,” which gives her the role of modifying man’s 
intellectual efforts when they are “too cold or too 
coarse.” 

It is in Comte’s remarks on the family that we have 
the clearest vision of his political ideals. The family 
unites, he thinks,” the happiest combination of authority 
and discipline and altruistic devotion. The authority 
which Bonald and Maistre placed in the Pope, Comte 
sees symbolized in the position of the Father, who is 
no more a tyrant than the monarchs of the counter- 
revolutionists were. Indeed, Comte’s similarity to the 
Traditionalists is practically complete, lacking only the 
outward acceptance of Catholic dogma to make it identi- 
cal. Comtism has been called an “inverted Catholi- 
cism.” As a matter of fact, it is not at all inverted. 
It is Catholicism of the Bonald-Maistre type expressed 
in more or less novel and secular language. The su- 
premacy of the spiritual powers, the belief in tradition,” 
the inequality of individuals, sexes, and ages, the so- 

* Id. IV 296. 

* Id. IV 300. 

eid. 1V 301. 

aN MEN Oa Ta 


* Td. IV 304. 
Sey ve aOG. 


THE RISE OF POSITIVISM 293 


cial irreducibility of the family are all in “ Législation 
Primitive.” That Bonald and Maistre found a pretended 
sanction for these ideas in the teachings of the Church 
corroborated by observation, whereas Comte found his 
verification for them in pretended observation alone, 
is an accident of biographical importance only. Life 
in a society organized by the Traditionalists or by Comte 
would have been much the same, except that neither 
Bonald nor Maistre aspired to the triple tiara. 

Society as a whole in Comte’s system is an organism, 
just as it was for the political scientists of the Middle 
Ages. On the analogy of the individual organism in 
which there is presumably a division of labor for the 
benefit of the whole, society is made out to be a com- 
plicated animal whose parts work for a good which 
is theirs but indirectly.” In spite of the “ naturalness ” 
of such a phenomenon, it does not always prevail, and 
the efforts of social benefactors should be directed 
towards the coordination of individual labor,” by ap- 
portioning to each man the work for which he is 
fitted—as in the Republic of Plato—either by nature 
or education.” Lest this lead to over-specialization and 
the disintegration of society, the government must con- 
stantly keep its wards in mind of their common soli- 
darity,” aided by the inherent tendency of society to de- 
velop the same sentiment.” 

oid, 1V 309. 

EG LV 3I5- 

° Td. IV 316. 


e 1GiAY 310; 
Pld: IN¢< 42%. 


2904. FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


The importance of solidarity is more clearly appre- 
ciated when one remembers that society, as Comte un- 
derstood it, is industrial, the result of an evolution 
through theological and metaphysical times.” The 
solidarity of the Catholics was supernatural. It de- 
pended not upon economic but upon religious principles 
and was an eternal truth. The effect of its realization 
would have been sensibly the same as that of Comte, 
but as neither Traditionalist nor Positivist was debating 
the pragmatic value of his theory, the differences were 
emphasized rather than the similarities. And whereas 
in the Catholic solidarity the individuals were at least 
as equal as the children of a just parent can be, in 
Comte’s there was a very practical subordination of 
man to man in the mere earning of his daily bread. 
It was as comforting to be told that one’s misery was 
a social necessity as it was, in the time of Marcus 
Aurelius, that one’s broken leg was a result of im- 
mutable physical laws. In both cases one had no fur- 
ther transcendental recompense to make his evil toler- 
able, In the Catholic system there was, to be sure, a 
similar element in the theory of inherited guilt, but it 
was somewhat mitigated by the chance of rehabilitation. 

The Comtean state would not have been without its 
spiritual head. In his early essay, ‘‘ Considération sur 
le Pouvoir Spirituel” (1826), he had indicated the 
necessity of finding a substitute for the work done by 
the Church in pre-revolutionary Europe. Had spiritual 
power prevailed, he says, Europe would have avoided, 


wd lV, 2h, St: 


THE RISE OF POSITIVISM 295 


first, what he calls “the divagation of intelligences,” 
é, e., free individualistic thinking unordered by a com- 
mon purpose; second, the almost complete absence of 
public morality ; third, the growing belief in a purely 
“material” point of view ; fourth, bureaucracy.” These 
evils, Comte believes, were rooted in the necessity of 
things as a preliminary to the new order. The new 
order, however, would, as we have said, not differ 
greatly from the old, for it would see restored to the 
spiritual power the “government of opinion,” which 
means for Comte the control of education. But since 
education to his mind signifies the adaptation of men 
to the lives which they must lead and to the peculiar 
function which they must fulfil,” it appears that the 
spiritual head of the state would play the role of Plato's 
philosopher-kings, the role which Comte had said in 
his ‘‘ Philosophie Positive’’ was the very life of the 
social organism. His “ Politique Positive” gives us an 
idea of what the control of opinion might be like, but 


% “ Pol. Pos.” IV App. pp. 184-187. My interpretation of the 
phrase, “ divagation of intelligence,” is justified by C.’s condem- 
nation of Lamennais for espousing the cause of freedom of 
worship. 

te, 103. 

*C.’s definition of education is, “Le systéme entier d’idées 
et dhabitudes nécessaire pour préparer les individus a l’ordre 
social dans lequel ils doivent vivre, et pour adapter, autant que 
possible, chacun d’eux a la destination particuliére qu’il doit 
empire, «Fol; Pos,’ App. IV 193.) In.“ Pol. Pos.” J 303, 
C. adds that the spiritual power shall control the fine arts as 
well as education, basing his argument on the phenomenon of 
medieval art and the failure of the fétes décadaires, which latter 
were, of course, managed by the temporal power. 


296 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


into that we shall not venture here. For it should be 
clear that Comte’s state is, as we have said, a trans- 
lation of the Catholic state. 

To one who is sensitive to the charms of undirected 
thought and the apparent good it has produced in the 
arts, if not in the sciences, Comte’s program will seem 
uncouth and barbarous. Indeed had he himself been a 
man in whose life the arts had counted, a man who 
could appreciate the revelations of, say, a Delacroix 
in regard to his manner of working,” he would never 
have thought of coupling governmental control with 
intellectual fertility. At the very time in which he was 
methodically producing or gestating his work, Delacroix 
was writing, ““ What makes a man extraordinary is at 
root a manner he has peculiar to himself of seeing 
things. . . . Thus there are no rules for these great 
souls: they are for the people who have only the talent 
which is acquired.” “ What would the arts have gained 
by directing the talent of this man? 


V 


The beautiful in Comte’s mind is associated, as it 
was in Cousin’s, with the true and the good. Any ob- 


* “Te n’aime pas la peinture raisonnable; il faut, je le vois, 


que mon esprit brouillon s’agite, défasse, essaye de cent ma- 
niéres, avant d’arriver au but dont le besoin me travaille dans 
chaque chose. ... Si je ne suis pas agité comme un serpent 
dans la main d’une pythonisse, je suis froid; il faut le recon- 
naitre et s’y soumettre; et c'est un grand bonheur. Tout ce 
que j’ai fait de bien a été fait ainsi.” (“ Journal d’ Eugéne Dela- 
croix,” P)1893) (Po 112!) 
* Id. I 102, dated 27 Apr. 1824. 


THE RISE OF POSITIVISM 207 


ject, he maintained, is good in so far as we consider its 
utility for the satisfaction of our public or private 
needs; beautiful relative to the “sentiment of ideal 
perfection which its contemplation may suggest to us,” 
true in its relation to ‘‘ the whole of appreciable pheno- 
mena,’ abstraction being made of its utility or its 
beauty.” The definition of the beautiful in relation to 
ideal perfection we recognize as an inheritance of Win- 
kelmann and the revival of interest in classic art. But 
the ideal which Winkelmann—and his school—and 
Comte are speaking of are two different things. Comte’s 
psychology, as we have suggested, is a development from 
the theories of Gall and Cabanis. There is no place 
in such theories for ideals which dwell apart from mat- 
ter as the neo-platonic tradition seemed to teach. On 
the contrary, he asserts that all arts are imitative since 
“reality always furnishes the natural source of ide- 
ality.” “In our infancy, individual or collective, as 
among the animals, a servile imitation, limited even to 
the slightest acts, constitutes the first manifestation of 
our esthetic aptitudes. But, in spite of the pretentions 
of a puerile vanity, representation now receives the 
name of art only in so far as it is embellished, that is 
to say, perfected, so as to become at bottom, more faith- 
ful, making stand out better the principal traits which an 
empirical mixture distorted at first.”*” Comte is not 
aware of the metaphysical difficulties of his position 
because he is not aware of the need for metaphysics. 
ee tioures ©¥ 1 10; cf,“ Pol, Pos.” 1 283. 


"* Pol. Pos.” I 288. 
gay [33 


298 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


“Ideal” to him is, as we understand him, simply an 
adjective of intensity. It is the word “ perfection ”’ 
which he is interested in emphasizing. This becomes 
clearer when we read what he has to say about the arts 
theniselves. 

The true aim of art, he suggests, is to “ charm and 
ameliorate humanity.” It is not, it will be noticed, 
to do anything for the artist. This aim is consonant 
with Buchez’s ‘“‘ Reflections ” cited above, and with the 
works of both Catholic and eclectic estheticians. But 
humanity is to be charmed and ameliorated only by 
that which strengthens the social order. This is accom- 
plished by the action of the beautiful on our emotions, 
which are, he says, unfortunately a greater stimulus 
to action than our ideas, These emotions, sympathy 
and antipathy, are aroused by the contemplation of 
moral and immoral types, but in order to make them 
more effective tools of social reform, the types must be 
exaggerated. In this exaggeration the “ideal” finds 
its place. “The ideal” becomes in Comte’s lexicon 
synonymous witha “ consistent exaggeration.” He says 
frankly” that unless good and evil are presented in 
art as respectively better and worse than they are in 


reality, art will fail to achieve its social purpose. The 


art, par excellence, is obviously poetry. 

Poetry, in the recognition of its types, touches phi- 
losophy, but in their utilization touches politics.™ It is 
therein that it becomes the instrument of the positivistic 

ee) POL Pos. ib 20, 


™ Id. 1 284. 
ed. 1285. 


a e 


THE RISE OF POSITIVISM 299 


movement. For positivism will encourage the exer- 
cise of the affective and speculative faculties as the 
one means of happiness and will be helpless without 
poetry.” This does not mean that poets are to be the 
unacknowledged legislators of Comte’s world. He re- 
pudiates such an idea almost with horror. ‘“‘ Although 
a vain pride already inspired the ancient poets with cer- 
tain errors analogous to the pretention of our contem- 
poraries, art was never regarded as the regulator of 
the polytheistic society in spite of the ease with which 
the dominant beliefs lent themselves to esthetic treat- 
ment.” Whenever artists have attempted to lead so- 
ciety, he believes, misfortune has followed. Their true 
function is to stimulate desirable emotions—presumably 
at the order of the state—to be an intermediary be- 
tween the affections and the reason.” 

Since the arts other than poetry have a less obvious 
message, they are put in a group lower in importance 
than poetry. Our two “esthetic” senses are sight and 
hearing,” each of which has special arts to cater to 
its needs, Hearing, as might be guessed, has the art 
of music, which Comte places immediately after poetry. 
It is ‘‘ more popular and more social ” ” and demands a 
smaller training either to produce it or to enjoy it. 
Sight has three arts, architecture, sculpture, and paint- 
ing, arranged in order of increasing esthetic importance. 

rid k- 270. 

adh | 270. 

Aho. L287, 


a1 293: 
40. 1204. 


300 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


For esthetic importance, Comte thinks, depends on an 
art’s ability to express spiritual beauty (la beauté mo- 
rale). Architecture is to all intents and purposes 
limited to the expression of material beauty. 

Up to the present time, continues Comte, the esthetic 
genius has had no opportunity to fulfil its proper rédle.™ 
Antiquity, in spite of the amateurs who short-sightedly 
praise it, was but a preparation and the middle ages, 
though much more favorable to the development of the 
arts, were not a period of genuinely great art, because 


110 


their customs were moribund.” They were spontaneous 
expressions of the social mind, but the social mind it- 
self was not yet free. 

Yet freedom is all important if the fine arts are 
to achieve their natural greatness. The positivistic ré- 
gime assures it, for the positivistic régime is the goal 
of human evolution. When it prevails, the social con- 
ditions for the completest operations of humanity shall 
prevail as well.“ Bit by bit art is becoming the interest 
of humanity at large and everything goes to show that 
in the future the greatness of our esthetic productions 
will be unsurpassed.” They will achieve greatness under 
direction of the spiritual powers in the state. They 
will be fortified by the fundamental basis of science.” 
But they in turn will act upon the sciences, curiously 
enough, in that upper margin of “theoretical liberty ” 

1d. L205: 

Sat Cs AAS Wg 

™ Id, I 208. 


"Id. I 290. 
waned 0 bh Bh (2b 


THE RISE OF POSITIVISM 301 


to embellish what we know of the truth.™ Art will 
be the instrument used by positivism to turn the minds 
of the young towards contemplation, which will serve 
them in their scientific work later on.™ 

Convinced that works of art en masse spring from 
the social mind, Comte believes that individual works 

of art spring from the individual’s mind with the same 
_ spontaneity."* Hence he is opposed to the instructions 
received in art schools which “stifle the esthetic im- 
pulse under technical labor.” The artist, on the con- 
trary, needs only the same universal training as other 
human beings receive. Thus he will no longer belong 
to a race apart and will address his works to all his 
fellow-men.” This is a possibility because the artist 
is the same intellectual type as the scientist. “ Study- 
ing the intellectual types which have not been able to 
find a suitable environment, one easily recognizes that 
the same minds would have cultivated with equal suc- 
cess either philosophy or poetry. Diderot, he says in a 
passage which recalls one cited above from Jouffroy, 
“would doubtless have been a great poet in a more 
esthetic time, as Goethe an eminent philosopher under a 
different public impulse.” That Goethe was a con- 
temporary and compatriot of Kant, Fichte, and Schel- 
ling, is not taken into consideration. 

So utilitarian a conception of art has its immediate 
parentage in Saint-Simon, but it traces its ancestry back 
to the ecclesiastical art of the middle ages without a 

mM Th, Pah Ib, 


1h: 1, 302. peal 017200; 
= 14/1307. medio le ato: 


302 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


break in the chain. Readers who are familiar with the 
writings of M. Emile Male appreciate the greatness 
which can come from an art strictly disciplined by a 
non-esthetic group of censors. The smallest details of 
a Book of Hours were regulated by a power superior 
to the artist. Art flourished with a peculiar strength 
and abundance. It is that goal achieved by the Church 
at which Comte is undoubtedly aiming. But the posi- 
tivistic church had not as yet the universality and the 
authority of the Church of Rome. Could it have at- 
tained them, there is little reason to doubt that the pro- 
gram of Comte was practical. A priori there is no 
ground for believing that the Grand-Etre should not 
inspire as many poets, painters, and architects as God. 
The one problem was to make humanity believe in it. 
And Comte thought that he has solved that problem. 
Comte is as far from agreeing with the romantic ar- 
tists of his time as either Catholics or Eclectics. The 
philosophical estheticians had one fundamental idea 
which the more progressive artists could not accept. The 
idea of a single type of beauty. The question was a 
practical one. One of the romantic ways of justifying 
novelties was maintaining a kind of esthetic nominalism. 
The romanticists sometimes maintained that the idea 
of beauty changed from age to age, or from country to 
country, or from individual to individual. The clas- 
sicists, on the contrary, interested in conforming to cer- 
tain French traditions, defended their conservatism by 
maintaining that Beauty was one and indivisible and 
eternal. Stendhal saw the necessity of attacking that 


Re » 
0 Se ee ae 


THE RISE OF POSITIVISM 303 


thesis above all others. He attacked from the point of 
view of Idéology. Emile Deschamps, writing much 
later—1828—continued the same tradition in his own 
way. Insisting on what appears to be the opposite 
theory, namely, that there is no real distinction between 
classic and romantic, that good and bad literature are 
the only kinds there are, he argues that romantic litera- 
ture is simply the production of certain genres as yet 
untried in France, the lyric, the elegiac, and the epic.” 
But he maintains as strongly that it is only possible and 
useful to compare writers of the same century ™ and 
later speaks like a true romanticist of the revolution 
which is taking place in all the arts.” Such arguments 
which urge a liberalism in appreciating the new and dif- 
ferent works of art, indicate the same feeling that Stend- 
hal had, the feeling that the beautiful is manifested in 
divers ways. In fact, it was one of the most convincing 
arguments that the new school could have found. 
But, like all relativistic and pluralistic theories, it 
ran into difficulties when it approached the question of 
criticism. The approval and disapproval of works of 
art, which is one of the most usual pastimes of 
critics, demands a standard and a standard is an awk- 
ward tool for a relativist or pluralist to handle. The 
philosophers had standards, but they were standards 
as often as not inapplicable to the art of their time or 
so detached from genuine esthetic interests as to be 
valueless in criticism. The German romanticist had his 
Pref. to “ Etudes frangaises et étrangéres,” p. 12. 


™ Td. 16. 
ant ( Pex ¥ 


304 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


philosophy already for him. The French, on the other 
hand, had German philosophy as interpreted by Mme. 
de Stael, idéology, eclecticism, catholicism, or posi- 
tivism. The romanticists often laughed at the German 
philosophers.” Deschamps, as we have said, accepted 
Cousin as the philosopher of his age, although Jouffroy 
would have done much better, and Cousin proclaimed 
himself as the representative in philosophy of the same 
school as that which Mme. de Stael and Chateaubriand 
had opened in literature. If Stendhal may be counted 
among the romanticists, ideology may be given a 
place in the new movement. Catholicism had a cer- 
tain influence through Lamennais’s effect on Hugo and 
Lamartine perhaps. But positivism, in spite of its bid 
for favor, was as much beyond the artistic pale as it 
was beyond the scientific. The reason for the small 
role played, by philosophy in French romanticism is 
that the romanticists were primarily men of letters, in- 
terested in purely esthetic enterprises. When they en- 
tered politics, they seemed to forget their romanticism. 
Their solidarity was very imperfect and it would not 


* The predecessors of the French romanticists among the 
philosophers, like Ballanche and Mme. de Staél, had a great 
respect for Kant. Later the sentiment changed. See Counson’s 
“De la légende de Kant chez les romantiques frangais,’ in 
Mélanges Godefroid Kurth, Liége 1908, Il. Chateaubriand 
turned his back decisively on Kant (“ Génie” I, ii, ch. ii). 
This may have been because of Joubert’s influence. Hugo’s 
mot about K’s wig, reproduced by Counson, is too well known 
to be repeated. See his “Littérature et philos. mélées,” 1819, 
in OC, Philos. I (1819-1834); P. 1882. “Up to 1880,” says 
Counson (p. 333), “ Kant remains for him [i. e., Hugo] the 
most learned pedant and the most trifling.” 


THE RISE OF POSITIVISM 305 


be difficult to point out that beyond a very limited ex- 
tent there was no “movement” at all in the sense of 
conscious concerted action, The attempts which have 
been made since 1830 to see one definite philosophy in 
French romanticism gain their strength from over- 
simplification of facts. Unhappily they have distorted 
history beyond tolerance and changed it into polemic. 

Such an account of positivism as we have given here 
does not do justice to its effect in France and abroad, 
where it captured the imagination of men more or less 
tired of metaphysics and religion and yet incapable of 
abandoning all metaphysical and religious activity. Its 
importance in France is seen in even academic French 
philosophy ; in England it worked its way into litera- 
ture and social life; and in South America it is still a 
potent force. But its larger development came in the 
second half of the century. In the first half it remained 
in France an obscure philosophy announced by an un- 
recognized thinker. Yet of all the indigenous philoso- 
phies of the time, it alone was to survive. Comte and 
to a lesser extent Maine de Biran remain, out of all 
the philosophers we have mentioned, influences in the 
present day. 


21 


CONCLUSION 


There are but few remarks which are needed to con- 
clude the historical study of any nation’s ideas, for the 
study should be self-concluding. But it is permissible 
to draw together the threads of discourse, if only to 
attain an esthetic end. 

The first half of the nineteenth century, which is 
the period we have been discussing, begins and ends 
with the ascendancy of a Bonaparte. This is symp- 
tomatic of the disease which was afflicting the unhappy 
country. Whereas other nations, such as England and 
the United States, may be said to have been creating 
for themselves a divine mission which they could later 
maintain was pushing them on to conquest and glory, 
France was wasting her energies in political reform, 
in the vain hope of making people better and happier 
by governmental means. 

The same futility characterizes the philosophies of 
the period. The same element of tragedy, of self-defeat 


marks them. The Catholics, hoping to protect the . 


Church, end by being excommunicated ; the idéologues 
are disgraced by the man whose success they help make 
possible; the eclectics begin as the new school of 
French philosophy and end as a group of timid school- 
masters, safe in the study of the past; the positivists, 
split into two camps, begin as the champions of natural 
science and end as the champions of a religion much 


306 


CONCLUSION 307 


more fantastic than the metaphysics which they ex- 
isted to oppose. 

French philosophers of this period, unlike their Ger- 
man contemporaries, were either in the political op- 
position or iii opposition to the mass of their country- 
men. Almost without exception they held some politi- 
cal position ; they were always on the defensive. This 
brought their thoughts close to the ground and gave 
them that appearance of shallowness which has kept 
them out of the histories of philosophy. What this 
really means is that they did not construct philosophical 
systems. Yet the importance of a philosopher is not to 
be measured by the number of pages which he receives 
in a history of philosophy. Such standards are deter- 
mined largely by an uncriticised tradition. It is to be 
measured rather by the intimacy which he has with the 
civilisation in which he works; by the effect he has upon 
that civilisation or by the clearness with which he ex- 
presses that civilisation’s interests. 

By such standards our philosophers take on a strik- 
ing importance, Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus had rela- 
tively little contact with their times. They wrote de- 
lightful books ; they influenced aliens beyond any other 
three men, furnishing material for almost all succeeding 
thinkers. But what had they to say to Greece or Rome 
that could be absorbed by Greece and Rome? Cousin, 
in spite of his shallowness, changed the educational sys- 
tem of France. The traditionalists voiced the aspira- 
tions of all Catholicism. Positivism had as its end the 
reconstruction of French society as it existed after the 
Revolution. There is something admirable in this 


308 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


wrestling with actual problems—however distant those 
problems may seem to us now. A real history of ideas 
ought to see that the importance of a thought is to be 
measured by the stimulus which calls it forth. One is 
not forced either to write or to read histories, 

The philosophies of this period, like those of all 
periods, have a great lyrical element. They are, as Mr. 
Santayana might say, bad poetry. Their value, for 
everyone but their founders is to a large extent like 
the value of a painting. But there are some people who 
try to refute paintings as if they were arguments, just 
as there are some people who swallow a scientific theory 
as if it were a cool and succulent oyster. Undoubtedly 
all these thoughts have some mysterious significance 
in the scheme of things, if there is a scheme, and un- 
doubtedly each thinker could provide a good reason 
for maintaining that his particular prejudice has a pe- 
culiarly close relation to the Truth. But it is certain 
that the biographical element played a preponderant 
part in its development. What determined the evolu- 
tion of Maine de Biran, if not dissatisfaction with the 
practical consequences of his theory? Was his mys- 
ticism more logical or “ truer” than his early ideology? 
Was Cousin’s spirit of compromise more logical than 
Bautain’s fidéism? Can there be much doubt that 
Cousin’s eclecticism was born from his desire to be a 
figure in the political as well as the learned world? Can 
there be much doubt that Bautain stopped short of ag- 
nosticism by his frank desire to stay a Catholic? It 
could be maintained that such reasons lie behind all 


I it I yr 


CONCLUSION 309 


philosophies. We are content here to suggest that they 
certainly lie behind those of our period. 

The main interest of our period for students of the 
history of philosophy is that of any spectacle in which 
human beings play a role. Historical curiosity is use- 
less ; its satisfaction serves no ulterior end. No one was 
ever the wiser in a practical way for knowing history ; 
no one was ever the more intelligent for ignoring it. 
History is simply another means of sophistication and 
as such invaluable. It should be the mother of tolerance 
and the scourge of fanaticism. But, unhappily, it is 
seldom either, for it can be known only through bad 
translations, 

If this interpretation of a part of French culture is 
interesting to read and if, as I hope, it has introduced 
new thinkers to the American public, it can ask for lit- 
tle greater success. It has no pretentions of being com- 
plete. It has been written from a special point of view 
which is apparent to the most casual reader. But as 
long as the point of view is obvious, it will be easy to 
check the accuracy of the exposition. That perhaps is 
all that can be asked of an expositor. For is there any 
recipé for leaping out of one’s training and natural en- 
dowment and surveying things in utter detachment? 


APPENDIX 
Azais 


The teachings of Azais were peculiarly adapted to 
the Empire because they had that obvious symmetry of 
construction, apparent common-sense and clearness 
which appeal to men who have not the power of intel- 
lectual analysis nor of deep emotion. They lacked all 
the difficulty of sensationalism and the liberalism it 
seemed to involve. They lacked the hard uncompromis- 
ing discipline of Catholicism, Apparently founded upon 
natural science, they were nevertheless phrased so that 
a child could grasp them and think that he was grasping 
something elusive. Apparently implying profound moral 
issues, they taught the simple morality of the Decalogue. 
They had all the naiveté of Plato’s science and none of 
the grandeur of his philosophy. They were in fine out- 
wardly noble and almost sublime, inwardly trivial or 
downright false. 

Their formulator began life as an obscure enough 
student in the Congregation of the Doctrinaires, where 
both Daunou and Laromiguiere were taught. Sent to 
the Collége de Tarbes, he wrote a letter in despair to 
his father, the musician, pleading to be released. The 
letter was intercepted and the writer made secretary to 
the Bishop. 

This new assignment, while it made Azais more con- 
tented, did not incline his mind more favorably towards. 


310 


AZAIS 311 


holy orders. He refused to enter the Church and became 
instead organist in the Benedictine Abbey of Cevennes. 

By this time the Revolution had broken out. To a 
man of Azais’s pacific nature, it was bound sooner or 
later to become intolerable. He stood it as long as he 
could, but finally published a violent pamphlet against 
it. The 18th Fructidor saw him condemned to deporta- 
tion, but he found concealment in the hospital of Tarbes 
among the Sisters of Charity.” He had always found 
help in the friendship of women.’ Years later he said 
of his behavior at this time, “I was irritated like all 
the other proscripts, that Napoleon had prevented us 
from stopping the torrent of revolution; and I did not 
see that no dam could at that moment have been erected, 
that in the moral and physical situation, every essen- 
tially monarchical institution was impossible. . . . The 
Revolution had to work itself out, and at the same time 
to be mastered; which made inevitable nay, even de- 
sirable, the power of a revolutionary soldier.” * 

At Tarbes he had time to think these thoughts through 
to the best of his ability. But like so many people of 
his time, he thought more about himself than about 
anything else. If he was interested in good and evil, it 
was because he had suffered evil and hoped for good. 
Nothing was more striking to his eye than the contrast 
between the peace which now surrounded him and the 
turmoil from which he had escaped. This contrast, 


1“ Des Compensations dans les destinées humaines,” 4th ed., 
F. 1825, I 388,\n. 1: 

? Guadet; “ Azais, sa Vie et ses Ouvrages,” P. 1846, ix. 

*“ Jugement impartial sur Napoléon,” P. 1820, p. 37. 


312 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


he says, sharpened his idea of a balance in man’s vicis- 
situdes. “I had seen before chagrin, bitterness, ennui, 
often despair, in the lap of fortune; I had been stirred 
by violent troubles when I lacked for nothing, On the 
contrary, in my new situation, in the asylum from mis- 
fortune and indigence, I was at peace, I was happy; 
and if any noise penetrated my retreat, it was usually 
the accents of gaiety and innocence. I listened to the 
games of poor orphans gathered together by charity.” * 

This thought to him was a conversion like that of 
St. Augustine in the garden at Milan. But instead of 
being a revelation of the living God, it was a revelation 
of the Platonic formula that pleasure is what builds up 
and pain what tears down and of the utilitarian for- 
mula that pleasure is good fortune and pain bad. 

He began to write, not as he says for publication, 
but for his inner happiness.* The result was his “ uni- 
versal system,” built upon the principle of compensation 
as a base. It read into the universe characters of good 
and evil much in the manner of the early Greeks, His 
fame began to grow. It was at this time that Madame 
Cottin, the novelist, ran across him, was carried away 
by him, and saw in him a latter-day Plato.’ 

In 1806 he made his appearance in Paris, where he 
was given a position as maitre d’étude in the Prytanée 
of St. Cyr, which he later changed for a class in geo. 

*“ Compensations ” I 370. 

° 1b, 

an es AOI Be yea 


™ See “ Souvenirs et Corresp. de Mme, Récamier,” 273 ; Sainte- 
Beuve; CL XI 488; Guadet xxvii. 


AZAIS 313 


graphy. Here he expounded his universal system in a 
manner which he later found unsatisfactory. But 
everyone who has written of him sees at this period 
the height of his success. His most sympathetic biog- 
rapher, Guadet, speaks of his “ brilliant audience” and 
his contemporary, Damiron, of his great vogue and his 
real talent in speaking and discussion.’ As late as 1839 
the Abbé Bautain grouped him with Maistre, Bonald 
and Ballanche as an “homme distingué.”” That he 
owed a large part of his success to the benevolence of 
Napoleon is indubitable, although he says later that Na- 
poleon always repulsed him and that only the “ honor- 
_ able and obstinate good will” of Montalivet, the father 
of Louis-Philippe’s Minister of the Interior, kept him 
alive.” 

His reasons for denying Napoleon’s favor were not 
difficult to understand. In 1815 Azais had published 
an extravagant eulogy of the Emperor, “ De Napoleon 
et de la France,” which he admitted had caused him to 
be distinguished by the subject of his praise.” He was 
made Rector of the Academy at Nancy during the 
Hundred Days, after having held the posts of Inspector 
of Printed Books (Inspecteur de la Librairie) in Avig- 
non in 1811 and in Nancy in 1812. After Waterloo 
of course he lost his post. There was nothing for him 
to do then but to appeal to the pity of the world. The 

*« Compensations ” I 413. 

®“ Hist. de la Philos. en Fr.,” 95. 

PP hiles.” bin. 


4“ Tugement impartial” vii. 
* Id. viii. 


314 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


world had pity. Mme. de Stael’s influence and that of 
a group of scholars won him a pension of 6000 francs 
from Louis XVIII. Could he have done less than re- 
pudiate his relations with Napoleon? 

In his garden in Paris he continued to expound his 
doctrines. His mildness, his simple eloquence, his uni- 
versal and ill-founded formule, attracted to him a small 
group of auditors. He began to publish his own books 
and invited readers to call at his hermitage, as he called 
it, 3 rue Duguay-Trouin, to discuss them in private. 
“Mon ermitage .. . sera ouvert avec empressement 
a tout homme que la verité intéresse, et je serai plein 
d’estime, de deférence, de reconnaissance, pour tout 
homme qui m’aidera a perfectionner le Systéme de la 
Vérité.” * But by then his vogue was gone and he was 
on the high-road to the oblivion where he would now 
rest had not a German candidate for the doctorate 
dragged him out of it.” 

Azais’s philosophy is interesting in that he founds a 
highly optimistic ethics upon a consistent materialism. 
Believing, as he does, that all ideas are material,”* the 
literal functions of the brain in the central part of which 
resides the soul, he does not deny their value either 
as a means towards the good life nor as an element of 
goodness attained. With him it is not a question of 
ideas being “ nothing but” brain states; their physio- 
logical origin is not an evaluation of them. 

#* “ Compensations”’ III, précis 108. 

* Josef Schweiger; “ Der Philosophe P-H. Azais,” Bonn 


1913. 
* “ Compensations ” IIT 200. 


AZAIS 315 


Ideas like everything else are material. Hence the 
world can be interpreted according to a law which ap- 
plies to the physical as well as to the mental realm. 
That law is what accounts for the dualism which exists 
in objects. Objects tend to expand. But when one ex- 
panding object meets another expanding object, one 
must either dent the other or completely annihilate 
it. The fact that such catastrophes do not occur daily 
is a result of the harmony in the world. There is, that 
is to say, a compensation between expansion and com- 
pression.” Since expansion, if left unchecked, would 
involve the explosion of the expanding object, and since 
an explosion is not taking place, the universe must be 
infinite in extent.” For only infinity, by which is meant 
limitlessness, can insure the world against dissolution.” 

Just as in Germany Schelling was reading the drama 
of self-consciousness into Nature, so in France Azais 
was reading the simple ups and downs of Nature into 
consciousness. They were equally successful and had 
nothing but facts to contradict them. In Azais, music, 
physics, psychology, astronomy, botany, and all the 
other arts and sciences join hands in a beautiful har- 
mony; in Schelling the same trait is noticeable. But 
whereas the German is expanding the Ego to make 
physics into psychology, the Frenchman is expanding 
the non-ego to make psychology into physics. 

There is no need of going through the details of 
this pseudo-science. A fertile imagination can recon- 

1a, 202, 


Td. III, précis 3; “ Explication universelle,”’ P. 1826, I 1. 
18 “ Compensations” III, précis 8; “ Explic. Univ.” I 8. 


316 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


struct it for itself. Wherever there are two apparently 
opposing facts, one has simply to read into them com- 
pensation. The formula always works, It is its appli- 
cation to man which interests us. As we have indicated 
above, pleasure is what constructs, pain what destroys.” 
Pleasure is a precise sign of organic amelioration, pain 
of organic harm.” This is the bridge between the moral 
and the physical realm. Just as there is compensation be- 
tween expansion and compression, between construction 
and destruction, so is there between pleasure and pain.” 
Like Plato and the humoralists, health and sickness 
are the physiological accompaniments of pleasure and 
pain. Azais like them describes health as a kind of har- 
mony which differs from their harmony only in lan- 
guage. He substitutes the words “ organic functions ” 
for “humors.” ” Indeed to read this part of Azais is 
to read a modern paraphrase of the Greek physicians. 

To speak of ideas, says Azais,” as if they were dis- 
tinct and immaterial, is to speak the language of illusion 
and incoherence. But the faculty of feeling them, which 
is an activity, is immaterial.“ Its immateriality may be 
simply something material highly expanded, like the 
soul of Tertullian, the pneuma of the Stoics, or the 
animal spirits of Descartes and his contemporaries.” 


9“ Compensations” II, précis 196; “ Explic. Univ.” I 351. 

*»“ Compensations ” III, précis 199. 

a Explic’ Univs’ | 1352. 

= Cf. “ Timaeus” 87; “ Philebus” 31, and even Spencer in 
the “Data of Ethics.” 

* “ Compensations ” III, précis 210; “ Explic. Univ.” IT 17. 
* “ Compensations ” III, précis 211; “ Explic, Univ.” II 43. 

* “ Passions,” Oeuvres, ed. Cousin, P. 1824; IV, art. viii, ix 
and “l’’Homme” IV 344. 


AZAIS 317 


The tradition that activity is somehow correlated with 
the immaterial dates back at least to Aristotelian physics, 
for it was a Greek habit to make the corporeal utterly 
passive and, by implication, the active non-corporeal—. 
or as non-corporeal as possible. Indeed, Plotinus proves 
that the soul is essentially impassive—like Lucretius’s 
gods—because it is not body. But Azais makes nothing 
of this point, and of course it is really a flaw in his 
system. He probably included it because contemporary 
psychology took it for granted. 

No man writing in his time could avoid considering 
the philosophy of government. Azais no more resisted 
_ the temptation than his fellow-thinkers. Here perhaps 
more than anywhere else he shows himself a man after 
the Emperor’s heart. Believing that wisdom consists 
in accepting with love the duties of man’s station,” 
he urges man to ally himself with others in society.” 
But society must be organized, lest the expansive force 
of each individual be unrestrained. Like a human being, 
it must have its chief, the head, the seat of intellectual 
action, and it must have its inferior organs subordinated 
to it.” Thus only can there be obtained that equilibrium 
necessary to the health of the whole. 

Among the members of the social organism are those 
who are fixed, the solids, and those who are mobile, 
the producers, the fluids. As the producers always 
struggle to achieve the joys of the property owners, and 
the property owners to retain what they have, the State 

>“ Compensations” III, précis 282. 


pdt: Ss Gas Be 
6“ Compensations” III, précis 286; “ Explic. Univ.” I 348. 


22 


318 FRENCH PHILOSOPHIES: ROMANTIC PERIOD 


has to see to it that the laws are especially favorable 
to the fixed. For the mobile classes are more numerous 
and more active, and would soon overwhelm the fixed 
if unhindered.” To retain the needed harmony or bal- 
ance between classes, it is necessary to have a chief and 
the chief should be a monarch and an hereditary mon- 
arch. He may be absolute if he be wise and good ; limited 
if not.” But in all events he must think of one thing 
only, the balance between the proprietors and the pro- 
letariat, the fixed and the mobile. 

When, however, a state arises from a colony, the 
government may then be republican. For this is simply 
justice due to the many founders of the state. When a 
number of men have planted a colony, they have thrown 
their fortunes in together; there is no aristocracy, 
“fluids form almost all the substance ” of the body poli- 
tic. It is only by rapid expansion that such a body can 
grow. 

“T have just defined,” says Azais, “the United States 
of North America.” 

He shared his Emperor’s hatred of England and 
hence could excuse America from the universal ex- 
planation. 

This is, in brief, the sum of Azais’s philosophy. Fan- 
tastic as 1t seems when thought of out of its nineteenth 
century background, it was not without a certain pres- 
tige. I cannot discover that Emerson drew his inspira- 

7° “ Compensations ” III, précis 294; “ Explic. Univ.” II 362. 
Cf. “ Jugement Impartial” 80. 


% « Explic. Univ.” II 364. Cf. “ Compensations” II xiv,—the 
man in the family. 


AZAIS 319 


tion from Azais, but his version of a similar doctrine 
was not at all laughed at among the élite of America. 
So Azais was able to find certain sympathizers. He 
maintained that Davy in the Philosophical Magazine 
noted the “‘ Systeme Universel ” and called its reason- 
ings “often very ingenious.” This mild praise so de- 
lighted Azais that he reprinted it thirteen years later, 
feeling himself to be the collaborator of the great Eng- 
lishman.” Mme. de Staél was not wholly unkindly to 
him and praised six short stories which make up the 
second volume of ‘ Des Compensations.” ” Broussais, 
who believed with Azais in the theory of phrenology, 
permitted him in an almost enthusiastic letter to dedi- 
cate his “De la Phrenologie” to him.* It is certain, 
in spite of the shame with which Frenchmen mention 
his name, that he was considered seriously by some men 
of letters and by many amateurs of philosophy. He 
was the popular philosopher of the Empire. Under a 
Napoleonic régime, one could expect little more. 


d9 


1 “ Constitution de l’univers,” P. 1840, App. 415. 
=“ Compensations” II xviii. 
* P, 1839, Intro. 41. 





INDEX 


References are given only to those pages which are likely to be of 


interest. ‘ : 
page where the discussion begins. 


L’Action Francaise, 93. 

Activity, in Laromiguiére, 35, 37; 
4o; in Destutt de Tracy, 35; 
in Cabanis, 36; in Maine de 
Biran, 42, 45; in Stendhal, 67; 
in Cousin, 204. 

Ampere, J. J., and Biran, 52 n. 36; 
53; introduction to Kant, 173. 

Analysis, and education, 4; and re- 
ligious ideas, 5; in Ideology, 
25; and the Reason, 30. 

Ancillon, on Biran, 64. 


Mme. d’Anjou, letter to Louis 
XVIII re return of religion, 
100. 


Arbogast, 4; quoted, 5 n. 6. 

Azais, philosophy expounded, Ap- 
pendix; his reputation, 313, 
319; and Napoleon, 313; his 
materialism, 315; and Schel- 
ling, 315; compensation, 316; 
philosophy of government, 317. 


Baldus de Ubaldeis, 82. 

Ballanche, Ch. III, sec. 3; his 
reputation, 112; his importance 
for the history of philosophy, 
115; his sentimentalism, 115; 
agreement and difference with 
Bonald and Maistre, 116; ex- 
position of his philosophy, 119; 
change both real and good, 
119; rehabilitation,, 120; met- 
empsychosis, 120; no eternal 
hell, 121; growth of religion, 
I21; personal interpretation, 
122; theory of tradition, 123; 
early reading of Kant, 172. 

Bautain, quoted on Ideology, 33; 
philosophy suggested, ch. V, 


321 


In the case of extended discussions the reference is to the 


sec. 4; his philosophic impor- 
tance, 234; fidétsme, 234; at- 
tack on contemporary schools, 
235; his recantation, 237. 

Bernardin-de-Saint-Pierre, and God, 
7; and Napoleon, 13. 

Bonald, likeness to medieval Catho- 
lics, 71; love of unity and per- 
manence, 71; hatred of multi- 
plicity, 71; and Dante, 72; 
tradition, 73, 79; and Hegel, 
73, 75; men elements of so- 
ciety, not independent atoms, 
74; language, 76; on Mme. de 
Staél, 78; Napoleon’s attitude 
towards, 80; on Aristotle and 
Plato, 81 n. 32; his predeces- 
sors, 82, 

Brillat-Savarin, relation of his 
“Physiologie du Gott” to 
Cabanis, 69. 

Buchez, on literature and the fine 
arts, 288. 


Cabanis, contribution to Ideology, 
31; physical and mental in, 31; 
some implications of his theo- 


Ties 32. 
Catechisms, Napoleon’s, 17; the 
Citoyen Poitevin’s, 18. 
Chateaubriand, his philosophical 


function, ch. III, sec. 2; his 
conversion, 94; “‘ Le Génie du 
Christianisme,”’ 95; its fame, 
96; his sincerity, 96 n. 60; 
Napoleon’s reaction, 97; recep- 
tion of “Le Génie”? by the 
Pope, 97; its argument, 98; its 
effect, 99; similar projects, 
100; Ginguené’s protest, 100; 


322 


Chateaubriand not in the 
Catholic tradition, ro1, 

Christianity, and slavery, 98 n. 68. 

The Church, and Napoleon, 3; and 
Ideology, 4; and sentimental- 
ism, 7; and the Monarchy, 8; 
her pre-revolutionary privi- 
leges, 9; scepticism within her 
ranks, 10; progress of revolu- 
tionary campaign against, 11; 
historical analogies of  at- 
tempted suppression of, 12; its 
task according to Lamennais, 
T32. 

Comte, see Positivism. 
Condillac, and Bonald’s theory of 
language, 83. 
Condorcet, 88; and positivism, 266. 
Constant, comment on Mme. de 
Staél, 112. 

Cousin, and analysis, 31; on 
Laromiguiére, 35; on Biran, 
64; and Schelling, 190, 208; 


on sensationalism, 209; his 
goal political, 199; spirit of 
compromise, 200; on mysti- 


cism, 201; an empiricist in his 
own eyes, 203; activity in, 
204; the human faculties, 205; 
spontaneity and reflection, 206; 
cause and_ substance, 206; 
political philosophy, Ch. V, sec. 
2; hated by both republicans 
and reactionaries, 211; on 
French origin of his ideas, 
212; charge of anti-Catholi- 
cism, 214; his advice to Bersot, 
218; ‘‘ Justice et Charité,” 
220; esthetic preferences, Ch. 
V, sec. 3; a classicist in taste, 
224; art an idealization, 225; 
theory derived from Winckel- 
mann, 226; ideal beauty in the 
Romantics, 228; a political but 
not an esthetic Romantic, 230; 
his pupils, Ch. V, sec. 4; 
made a business of the teach- 
ing of philosophy, 251; his in- 
fluence, 252. j 


INDEX 


Dante, 72. 

Daube, on activity and passivity, 
36; 37 n. 9, 38. 

Daunou, Napoleon’s boast to, 22; 
the réles of logic and meta- 
physics, 39; refusal of posi- 
tion as Councillor of State, 81. 

Delacroix, on esthetic inspiration, 


296. 
Destutt de Tracy, contribution to 
Ideology, 24; his theory 


of resistance contrasted with 

Fichte’s, 28; and the will, 29; 

why his theory died out, 29; 

and Biran, 47, 48; funda- 

mental paradox of his philoso- 

phy, 68; on Kant, 175. 
Dietrich of Niem, 83. 


Eclecticism, Ch, V. See Cousin. 
Effort, in Maine de Biran, 46; in 
Rey Régis, 46 n. 28, 


Fontanes, Napoleon’s admission of 
defeat to, 22; on the prerequi- 
sites of the Neo-Christian 
apology, 93,97; letter to Joubert 
re the Pope’s reception of “ Le 
Génie,”’ 98. 

Franklin, 7. 


Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire, his cosmol- 


ogy, 255. 
Ginguené, review of ‘‘ Le Génie,’ 
100. 


Habit, Maine de Biran’s memoir 
on, 45, 47. 

Harris, quoted, 50 n. 34; 65. 

Hegel, and Bonald, 73, 75; and 
Maistre, 75 n. 14. 

Mme. Helvétius, 15. 

Hoene-Wronsky, 174 n. 56. 


Ideology, and Napoleon, 4; the for- 
tunes of, Ch, II; fate of the 
word, 23; synopsis of its ten- 
ets, 24; and Condillac, 24; 
Destutt de Tracy’s contribu- 
tion to, 24; his description of, 





INDEX 323 


24; and zoology, 25; popular 
reaction to in the Empire, 26; 
and sensationalism, 26; why it 
died out, 29; Cabanis’s contri- 
bution to, 31; and passivity, 
32; in Laromiguiére, 35; doc- 
trine of habit, 44; Biran’s 
break with, 57. 


Institut de France, suppression of 


the Second Class of, 19, 21; 
Napoleon’s membership, 20; its 
raison d’étre, 39. 


Jouffroy, philosophy expounded, 


239; contrast with Cousin, 239; 
impotency of the reason, 240; 
basis of reason a “ blind act 
of faith,’ 241; and Reid, 242; 
internationalism, 243; mean- 
ing of “common-sense,” 244; 
its origin, 245; like the Abso- 
lute, 246; ethical point of 
view, 247. 


Kant, and Biran, 51, 52 n. 36; 


their categories, 54; introduc- 
tion into France, Ch. IV, sec. 
2; reputation during the Revo- 
lution, 165; philosophic inter- 
est in, 168; in the Spectateur 
du Nord, 170; Villers’s early 
article on, 170; in Lyons, 171; 
Ballanche, 172; Ampére, 173; 
Hoene-Wronsky, 174; Kinker, 
174; Destutt de Tracy, 175; 
Laromiguiére, 176; Villers’s 
book on, 177; its reception, 
179; effect on Mme. de Staél, 
180; Degérando, 181; and the 
Abbé Bautain, 234. 


Lamartine, letter to Maistre on ap- 


pearance of “ Du Pape,” 92. 


Lamennais, Ch. III, sec. 4; the 


unity of his thought, 126; 
basis of his theory, 127; 
equation of “religion” and 
“‘ Catholicism,’’ 129, 131; its 
substantiation, 130; homoge- 
neity of tradition, 130; the 


task of the Church, 132; his 
ultramontanism, 133; the ordi- 
nances of 1828, 134; Mirari 
Vos, 137; “ Paroles d’un Croy- 
ant,” 140; its philosophy, 141; 
rights and duties, 143; theo- 
cracy, 144; liberty and solidar- 
ity, 144; internationalism, 145. 

Language, divine origin of a com- 
monplace in the eighteenth 
century, 83 n. 39. 

Laromiguiére, his philosophy, Ch. 
II, sec. 2; and Kant, 34; his 
writings, 34; his charm, 35; 
and L. J. J. Daube, 36; the 
basis of his epistemology, 37; 
intelligence in, 38; on system, 
39; on the will, 40; basis of 
his fame, 40, 40 n. 12; and 
Napoleon, 41; his retirement, 
42; Biran’s article on, 59; on 
Kant, 176. 

Lerminier, quoted, 22. 

Louis XVIII, influence on the 
counter-revolutionary move- 
ment, 71. 

Loyson, quoted on Bonald and 
Maistre, 86 n, 45. 


Maine de Biran, his philosophy, 
Ch, II, sec. 3; earliest philo- 
sophical ambition, 42; why in- 
terested in activity, 43; me- 
moir on habit, 44; early views 
of activity and passivity, 45; 
and causation, 46; and effort, 
46; and Destutt de Tracy, 47, 
48; memoir on the decomposi- 
tion of thought, 48; and Rous- 
seau, 50; and Kant, 51; com- 
ments on the “ Profession de 
Foi du Vicaire Savoyard ” 
ethical not epistemological, 51; 
the Ego in, 52; his categories 
and Kant’s, 54; their “‘ deduc- 
tion,” 55; his misgivings 
thereon, 55; his Philosophical 
Society, 56; misgivings upon 
the introspective method, 56; 
break with Ideology, 57; article 


324 INDEX 


on Laromiguiére, 59; spontane- 
ity of attention, 59; his growing 
piety, 60; the autonomy of 
the will, 60; his mystic way, 
60; the last phase of effort, 
62; his influence, 63; con- 
trasted with Nietzsche, 64; 
estimates of his work, 64. 

Maistre, his philosophy expounded, 
85; an eleatic like Bonald, 85; 
hatred of time and change, 85; 
relation to the Christian tra- 
dition, 86; evil and disobedi- 
ence, 86; hatred of diversity, 
88; longed for medieval unity, 
89; his ultramontanism, 90; 
invective against Voltaire, 91; 
his prophecies, 91; reception 
of ‘Du Pape,” 92; his voice 
now heard in “ L’Action Fran- 
Gaise,”’ 93. 


Napoleon, attacks revolutionary cul- 
ture, 1; friendship for the 
Zhurch, 3; restoration of the 
Cult, 13; and Ideology, 14; 
and science, 15; aim in found- 
ing the University, 16; Im- 
perial Catechism, 17; remark 
to Queen Louise of Prussia, 
18 n. 35; and unity,.10; re- 
marks to the Professors of 
Pavia, 19; and the Institut, 
20; boast to Daunou, 22; ad- 
mits spiritual defeat to Fon- 
tanes, 22; and Laromiguiére, 
41; and Bonald, 81; rewards 
Chateaubriand, 97; his “ class- 
icism,’’ I10. 

Neo-Christianity, Ch. III. 

Nicholas of Cusa, 82. 

Nietzsche, and Biran, 64. 


Parlor-Christians, 98. 

Passivity, in Ideology, 32; revolt 
against, in Laromiguiére, 40; 
in Maine de Biran, 42; 45, 47. 

“ Persian Letters,’”’ ro. 

Philosophy, and the Revolution, 2; 


attitude of the people towards, 


2; and anti-clericalism, 8, 10, 
11; Mme. de Staél’s definition 
of, 107. 

The ‘‘ Physiologies,” 69. 

Political parties and the Revolu- 
tion, 256. 

Positivism, its rise, Ch. VI; a phil- 
osophical summation of early 
nineteenth century French 
culture, 254; study of society 
as such, 257; antecedents, so- 
cial dynamics, 258; social stat- 
ics, 260; and Lamennais, 261; 
law of three states, 263; and 
Turgot, 265; and Condorcet, 
266; Saint-Simon, 270; Bur- 
din, 273; Cuvier, 274; and 
metaphysics, 277; Catholic ob- 
jection to, 278; and Ideology, 
280, 291; not free from “ meta- 
physics,” 281; nor from ‘“ psy- 
chology,” 282; and behavior- 
ism, 284; social program, Ch. 
VI, sec. 4; the domination of 
“social utility,’? 289; inherent 
sociability of human beings, 
290; inequality of the sexes, 
292; the family, 292; and 
Catholicism, 292; society an or- 
ganism, 293; and industrial, 
294; the spiritual power, 294; 
definition of education, 295 n. 
95; esthetics, Ch. VI, sec. 5; 
definition of the beautiful, 
297; aim of art, 298; poetry, 
298; other arts, 209; freedom 
and the arts, 300; parentage 
of the theory, 301; and roman- 
ticism, 302. 


Reid, influence on French philoso- 


phy; Ch. EV, sees or 
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 
12. 
Régis, and Biran, 46 n. 28. 
Robespierre, and sentimentalism, 6; 
and the Clergy, 7. 
Rousseau, ‘‘ Profession de Foi du 
Vicaire Savoyard’’ quoted, 
49; and James Harris, 50; and 


INDEX 


Bonald’s theory of language, 
83; the master of Mme. de 
Stael, 102; not a unified per- 
sonality, 102; and Lamennais, 
142. 

Royer-Collard, his teaching ex- 
pounded, 157; anti-sensational- 
ism, 158; the via media, 159; 
sensation and perception, 161; 
causality, 162; principle of in- 
duction, 163. 


Sainte-Beuve, on Biran, 64; the 
** parlor-Christians,” 98. 

Saint-Martin, 7; 83 n. 36. 

St. Thomas Aquinas, 82. 

Schelling, introduction into France, 
184; hostility of the pre- 
Cousinian notices, 186; possi- 
ble explanation of, 187; in 
the Archives Philosophiques, 
188; in the Globe, 189; and 
Cousin, 190; first translation 
into French, 191; Barchou- 
Penhoén, 192; Cuvier, 192; 
his charm, 193; Lébre on, 194; 
Cousin’s debt to, 207; his es- 
thetics contrasted with Hegel’s, 
227. 

Sentimentalism, 6; and the Church, 
7; in Ballanche, 115. 

Shakespeare, lines to, 289. 

Simon, on Biran, 64. 

Mme. de Staél, Bonald’s opinion 
of, 78; her philosophy ex- 
pounded, Ch. III, sec. 2; and 
Chateaubriand, 102, 110; and 
Rousseau, 102, 111; theory of 
knowledge, 104; the antithesis 
between our aspirations and 


325 


our capacities, 104; springs of 
action non-rational, 105; no- 
tion of philosophy, 106; har- 
mony between her philosophy, 
religion, and politics, 108; a 
woman without a country, 109; 
or party, 109; cause of her 
hatred of Napoleon, 109; her 
*‘ enthusiasm,”’ 110. 

Stapfer, and Biran, 52 n. 36; and 
Kant, 173. 

Stendhal, and Ideology, 65, 67; 
and idealism, 66; and the 
teachings of Cabanis, 66; on 
the ‘‘ Génie du Christianisme,” 
66; activity, 67. 


Theodosian Code, 12. 

Traditionalism, Ch. III; its effects, 
Ch. III, sec. 5; its condemna- 
tion, 147; its ineffectiveness, 
149; minimum effect on litera- 
ture, 150; and on painting, 
TS0. 


Unity, and Napoleonic government, 
19; in Bonald, 71; achieved in 
the Middle Ages, 8o. 

The University, Napoleon’s aim in 
founding it, 16; contrasted 
with the Ecoles Centrales, 17. 


Villers, early article on Kant, 171; 
book on Kant, 177. 

Volition, in Maine de Biran, 47; 
its autonomy, 60. 

Voltaire, Maistre’s invective of, 
91; Jouffroy’s comment on, 
242. 








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